Amendments to the Illinois Nurse Agency Licensing Act (HB 4666) purpose to endorse transparency and protections for healthcare workers, but, in observe, they make it a lot more complicated for nurse staffing agencies to retain personnel.
Under the new legislation, staffing companies undertaking small business in Illinois can no for a longer time enter into covenants not-to-contend with nurses or licensed nursing assistants. Similarly, nurse staffing agencies are prohibited from necessitating any “buy-out” fee, placement payment, or other form of payment if the nurse is employed by a healthcare facility. The legislation applies only to agreements entered into soon after the law’s efficient date of July 1, 2022, so prior existing agreements will need not be modified.
In addition to barring non-competes involving nurse staffing companies and nurses, HB 4666 also imposes sizeable reporting and compliance obligations on staffing organizations. Contracts concerning staffing agencies and health care services have to incorporate a plan of all hourly invoice fees for every personnel classification, which could consist of “hourly fork out amount, change differential, weekend differential, hazard shell out, demand nurse include-on, additional time, vacation pay, and travel or mileage pay.” Contracts also ought to deliver a “full description of administrative charges” and, most appreciably, include a provision that no considerably less than 100 per cent of the hourly level should really be paid out to the deal nurse.
All these kinds of contracts must be submitted to the Illinois Section of Labor in five organization times of execution. Copies of all supporting invoices to healthcare expert services personnel also must be preserved and submitted to the Division upon request.
Further, on a quarterly basis, nurse staffing companies ought to submit in depth reports to the Illinois Division of Labor categorised by county and company sort. The experiences need to include things like:
A list of the average total billed to the health care facility for every single individual worker classification

A record of the typical sum compensated by the nursing company to workforce in each individual particular person staff category and

A checklist of the normal quantity of labor-connected expenditures paid by nursing agency for each and every worker group, including payroll taxes, workers’ payment insurance policies, qualified legal responsibility coverage, credentialing and testing, and other staff-relevant expenses.
The Illinois Department of Labor will publish experiences on its web page of a compilation of the details noted.
HB 4666 is the hottest in a sequence of measures earning it more tough for Illinois businesses to prohibit and keep workers. In 2021, Illinois amended the Independence to Get the job done Act and placed restrictions, like a $75,000 wage minimum, on all non-compete agreements (in each individual sector) inside the point out.
We encourage all nurse staffing corporations with organization in Illinois to achieve out for guidance concerning how to implement a in depth prepare to comply with the new legislation. This features reviewing and updating work and facility agreements and removing restrictive covenants, environment and documenting shell out in a way that complies with the complexities of the new legislation, and creating needed recordkeeping and reporting techniques.
Users of the Jackson Lewis Healthcare Field group work with consumers on all these concerns every day. Please speak to the Jackson Lewis lawyer you do the job with or a single of our industry team members if you have any inquiries about these vital takeaways.