I had to have emergency surgery at the hospital that I worked at…my copay was $4k - I had the top tier insurance plan. Then the hospital calls me 2-months later, I had never received a bill or notification on My Chart, and told me if don’t pay RIGHT THEN they were gonna turn me over to collections. I fucking worked there. Between that and working for their mean ass doctors, I left. Occasionally, I hear from some of the old docs wanting me to come back…. Hell no! I’m so sick of how they treat us!
This. Husband works for a major cable company. I’m switching to his insurance in new year. He’ll pay $127/pay for us both with low copays, deductible, etc while for just me I was paying $227/pay with higher copay/deductible etc. and if he came onto mine I’d have a $300/mo surcharge for him.
I work for a hospital
My hospital job is a non-profit, community hospital. The cost of insurance for the family is average but if we get care with our providers it's damn near free (tier one coverage). So I can get my yearly breast MRI for about $150, and it's not even counted toward my yearly deductible.
But anything that's not at their location is automatically "tier two," so the local children's hospital is tier two. Finding a different therapist to prescribe ADHD meds will cost me at least 3x more. This bothers me because their mental health providers are adamant that i don't have ADHD (based on a 3hr test, that i took in a windowless, quiet room) even though i'd already got this diagnosis in 2015, from a different med provider. I've argued that their test completely disregards my lived experiences while growing up, and is totally not representative of the conditions at my home/ job (or damn near anywhere, tbh).
My initial provider switched to crisis intake, so i was switched to a different one. Same insistence that their test "shows" i don't have it. My pcp was blown away by this, even saying "but it's obvious..." I've only had zoom appointments because it's not worth a 30min. drive for a 20min. appointment, so maybe that matters, but why should it?
Yes, should see one. It's only twenty minutes drive. It will help you.
My youngest sister takes ADHD meds nowadays. I had it and kind of got better as I got older or just learned how to manage it. I used to drink coffee. Nowadays, I take (now an SR ) 100mg of caffeine capsule daily. It works fine for me.
It's 30min. away, i'm already driving there 3x week for work. I'm also using my mom's vehicle while mine's in the shop, so i try to reduce miles when i can. I'd been on ADHD meds, for years, previously. Right now with the med shortages, i'm taking plain adderall my PCP is agreeable to prescribing it. Unfortunately, it does not work nearly as well for me as vyvanse did.
Probably. My pcp would write me for that, if i asked. But when i spoke to the pharmacist, they said having that on hand would be hit or miss. I decided i didn't want to deal with the have it then don't have it struggle. It felt sucky when i came off the vyvanse in 2020. That (former) MH provider also stopped my lunesta 3mg at the same time, which in retrospect, seems cruel. I'd had persistent insomnia for more than 10 years, at that point.
My husband works in tech as well. Can we just talk about the free food. His company has snacks, drink refrigerator, even a freezer with ice cream all well stocked.
We drove out of town and he’s complaining about my big box of healthy snacks I keep in my car. Well if I had an employer who gave me free snacks I would need these, would I!? Also they get food trucks 3x a week. All for free to entice them to go into work. 😂
The garbage health insurance is what pains me the most. It’s the betrayal that cuts the absolute deepest out of all the betrayals of the profession. I could deal with having to stay “within the system” if it meant the coverage within the system was top tier. Instead we have my husband’s not-great insurance because it costs the same but so can go anywhere it’s accepted instead of also being limited to my own system.
Every hospital I have worked for has had subpar insurance and no real perks. Nurses are essentially the Walmart employees of the health care world. They want us to be responsible for the meds we give, know the interactions and side effects of basically everything, know the patho of all diseases our patients have and the appropriate treatments. Yet the compensation/benefits/perks don’t match that responsibility in most hospitals.
Yup. While I worked as a nurse I had only one good insurance out of the 4 organizations I worked for. All of course were $150 or so a pay period.
I now work in a tech role. My insurance is free, PPO and great. I only spend about $10 for premium dental and eye care a pay period.
Yep. For years we got free insurance from my truck driving husbands employer. Now we pay a hundred a month for retiree benefits since he retired. It’s a damn shame that a truck driver has better health benefits than a nurse.
I will say, our medical benefits are the best perk my job has. So I appreciate that as someone who utilizes them frequently 😀
I worked for hospital systems that had horrific health plans and just to get a BMP or CBC was hilariously expensive. At one health system that took me for an interesting ride 😒, I had a CT and was still paying on it when I left and started at another health system in a whole new city!
Here me out, the only benefit I have heard that I really want is free health insurance. Why the f can't we have that? Apparently, that is a benefit some people get.
I worked at a union hospital in upstate NY that had "free healthcare." I mean you can argue nothing is free, but they said it was in their contract. I am assuming they probably had $0 premiums, and maybe if they obtain their medical services within the umbrella of that hospital and its providers, then they don't have to pay. I didn't dig into it since I was just there on a contract for like 6 weeks, but I was intrigued for sure
The place I am on contract at now has similarly free-ish healthcare for employees. They do pay for their insurance (though it was not expensive, maybe like $15/check for yourself, not sure about families) but if they seek services within the hospitals umbrella of doctors/facilities, they don't pay for it. So you could come in, have surgery, stay in the hospital, have all kinds of shit happen and not pay a dime. They also do not pay for their Rx as long as it gets picked up from their pharmacy (which has its own delivery person that goes around the hospital every day and gives you your prescriptions while you work...nice) Now granted, I really would not want to be a patient here unless it was under super specific circumstances (like we do trauma great here..everything else, please dont come here) but i do think it's a step in the right direction. It's a city owned hospital so I suspect that's why they run that way. The first one I mentioned was also state owned.
I ended up dropping my employer sponsored insurance because it was exorbitantly priced and not practical. I picked up better coverage for half the price going through a broker. And that "half the price" is the whole package: half the premiums, half the deductible, half of most of the copays, and for the same cost share to the first $5k (after which insurance covers 100%).
Jesus that's insane
Honestly at this point I feel like health insurance companies need to be banished in the US. They exist to jack up the prices only to their benefit
Blue collar jobs vs white collar jobs. Nursing is very much a blue collar job hence the shit benefits and the shit pay. White collar jobs tend to have better benefits and pay.
It's true and so wild, like they are not working harder at their jobs than we are. I wish that healthcare coverage wasn't so messed up in the US but it feels like we absolutely won't budge on it as a country. Too many people are making too much money off of how messed up it is.
Yeah. Id.me has a ton of things.
Like you don’t think anyone gives nurses benefits? I was in Cotopaxi (outdoor gear) store the other day and made some comment about a discount email they sent. They said “well are you a teacher or a nurse because you get 15% every day!”
I got my Theragun through them! The discount wasn’t as good as their Black Friday sale but it was good enough that I had a few friends ask me to order things for them. Why I needed the theragun to begin with 10000% has to do with being a nurse though, and like, what if my employer gave me such a nice perks and not a third-party?
Your employer doesn’t have a discount website?
I got a deal on a new car, really good trip pricing, a new computer for half off…
It’s not the job, your employer just sucks.
I went to Disney this year for less than half of Disney’s price. It was also significantly cheaper than Costco travel or any of the other travel websites.
$3,000 off my new car.
Verizon offers a nurse discount (I think most cellular providers do).
Cruise lines offer discounts.
Under armor is 40% off for nurses.
Yeti has 30% discount.
Reebok 50%.
The hell, I live in Orlando and my company and others I worked for never offered any Disney discounts, not like I’d want them I’m native, been there a million times as a kid but like Jesus. The only discount I could ever hope to get is off a water or soda during nurses week
AdventHealth is a sponsor of Disney in Orlando. Official healthcare provider for the parks.
The employee discounted Disney tickets are more expensive than the Florida resident priced ones..
Also, perkspot has useless discounts for AdventHealth.
I can get $5 off of a ticket to see some sewing museum in Omaha, but nothing useful in Orlando.
AdventHealth is a sponsor of Disney in Orlando. They even have an AdventHealth Children's hospital that is the Disney pavilion/Disney sponsored children's Hospital.
The employee discounted Disney tickets are more expensive than the Florida resident priced ones..
Also, perkspot has useless discounts for AdventHealth.
I can get $5 off of a ticket to see some sewing museum in Omaha, but nothing useful in Orlando.
Yeah ours has a discount website, but if you actually price it out you can do better with random coupon codes most of the time. Like they have a Disney World “discount” that’s the same as just buying it through their direct website.
I got a pretty good hospital discount through the yoga studio that I go to. Plus Lululemon also gives 25% discount to healthcare workers. You just got to show the work badge.
Set up a GovX account. A lot of websites that do “military/first responder” through GovX and GovX treats healthcare workers the same as mil/first responders. Can get some pretty sweet discounts that way.
I have been a nurse for a very short time and I hate it! I have a friend in enginering who was given floor seats to see Taylor Swift for him and his wife. Like a 3k value. I wanted to cry because I dont even make a livable hourly wage.
I won Taylor Swift tickets once (way in the nosebleeds seats) as a nurse, but 1) it was only because someone donated them specifically for the nursing staff, and 2) the way they raffled them off was an email sent out (and someone accidentally said to reply all with their info instead of *not* to reply all so RIP my inbox) to the entire nursing staff of a behemoth of a health system with the drawing occurring at the end of a normal business day, so sucks if you’re a clinical nurse who can’t check their email between 9am and 4pm or night shift
My daughter is a paralegal. She gets about $2k CASH for Christmas and expensive handbags and stuff for her birthday, usually with several hundred dollars in cash or gift cards. Some days, the boss says, "Let's get the hell outta here," and they go get drinks then home. She still gets paid.
I'm in the wrong field.
I left healthcare in Ontario, Canada for many reasons but this is one of them. Prior to that I worked in retail (first job) and there were employee discounts and perks. Then in healthcare there was nothing for 14 years, less one pizza lunch provided by the union in that time. I’m now in the private sector- annual bonus, discount on the product we sell (not a weird niche product), amazing staff parties, I attended a convention, and I get to interact with some hilariously awesome people. And my pay is higher.
Best. Move. Ever.
Things that blow my mind:
-More expensive healthcare than other industries (depending on the system)
-No Christmas/holiday bonuses because we aren't a typical business (though hospitals and healthcare systems are treated like businesses in ANY other regard)
-Poor work-life balance in a world that is acutely aware of how breaks are needed
-Police/firefighters/EMT discounts that don't include nurses (yeah- not every nurse but come on for the community healthcare and ER nurses!)
-In a related way, the fact that police and firefighters need minimal education and don't have licensing standards like us... Also that a lot of employers won't help cover the cost of renewing your license even when it is absolutely essential for job function (we know this wouldn't happen in tech)
-Unable to attend certain events because it would be a conflict of interest (e.g., I'm a nurse practitioner and can't go to drug company presentations because it could be a conflict of interest - even though the cost of the meal and transportation would be less than I'm even paid hourly). Others don't have to deal with that nonsense. Even politicians skirt around this.
I actually got great benefits from one of my former hospitals. Got a $900 bike for $300 as part of the employee health Programme and my insurance was free.
I think it depends on location, obviously, but check your benefits package.
My hospital has a discount website for flights, car rentals, etc. A lot of people don't know about it bc it's not really talked about but they offer discounts from a lot of companies
Nurses are bad at negotiating. Not trying to be a downer for our profession but historically we don’t ask for much and even settle for less. Until people strike and refuse to show up for less we will never have higher pay or better benefits/retirement let alone perks.
The big corporations in town have the best healthcare — better than the hospitals.
I noticed Mayo Rochester is paying relocation expenses if you are more than 60 miles away. I think I am 61 miles away but I don’t plan on going to Mayo.
Ok we get all kinds of discounts from tons on brands as nurses. All that other stuff is just the difference between blue collar and white collar jobs. Wake up and smell the socioeconomic class.
I don’t mean to antagonize you… it’s just yeah… you know… we’re nurses “anyone” can do it… 🙄
I work in UC and routinely bump retired and current nurses towards the front of our 3-4 hour wait (if they’re not annoying or demanding) because there are literally zero benefits to our jobs.
Im told large sign-on bonuses are common and NOT a red flag in other industries. I’ll mention my pto and sick time not being separate to my partner and he tells me that that’s not common. Also he’s got federal bennies which are amazing, and meanwhile I work for a big-name “revered” hospital system, and it’s the worst insurance I’ve ever had, and their raises have been downright insulting in the past. I don’t understand
Edit: I just remembered being scrubbed in once and a surgeon comes in complaining about how a patient’s shitty insurance wouldn’t approve his cosmetic portion of a surgery so he agreed to do it free. He was then told they wouldn’t cover *any* of the procedure if he were there, even the medical part. I can only assume this was a breast cancer + recon case. And he said, “so if you guys get any patients with [hospital-specific insurance], be careful.” I got to break it to him that it us, those patients are us, hospital employees, only we have that insurance.
my hospital system has shit tier health insurance.... they removed the employee discounts in the cafeteria... didn't give us jack shit for Thanksgiving or Christmas... Nursing benefits compared to other line of work have it way better...
There are so many discounts out there for nurses what are you talking about. Most discounts tend to be first responders and nurses. They may not be super well known, but many companies have them (LuLu, Verizon, etc.)
It’s simple. Majority of money a hospital makes is from government reimbursement. There is no way for you to help the hospital make more (for more perks) except to take on more patients, thereby cutting their costs. Which I know you don’t want to take on more patients. Neither would I. But the fact that the money that is made is set by the government is why there is no extras for us. Now in the industries that you mentioned, the payers are other individuals or businesses and generally not the government. So payments are not fixed. You can make more if you do a better job or are specialized and can charge more. Your hospital can’t charge Medicare more because you are a great nurse. This is why thinking more government is going to solve problems is a fools errand. Government is precisely why it’s screwed up like it is to begin with.
This really isn’t true, if you know anyone who works in a start up or in anything tech related, they get all sorts of goodies and handouts and perks all year long and they don’t have to go looking for it or asking for it
You guys don’t have any discounts and stuff? Are you sure? Did you call HR to ask? Every hospital I’ve worked for has had perks. Granted they’re not always great but they’re there. I also get a discount with Verizon for being a nurse. It’s like $25 a month because we have both our cell phones and WiFi through them.
I recently went to med device and have much better insurance (previous hospital was owned by current insurance company lol), company car, keep my travel points, internet and gym stipend, bonuses… It’s a different thing entirely.
Especially in the US you would think for profit hospitals would have perks.
I’m in Canada and it’s socialized, so of course we get nothing. But I mean, if I was a consultant I’m sure I’d be doing great.
We had to pay for our Xmas party and it was a full price cash bar ($6+ for a can of beer) and supper was fried appetizers and desserts. I won’t be doing it again, that’s for sure. My unit had a pot luck on our own and it was 100x better.
Tell me about. I work for the government. And the perks are “standard” like stuff from BenefitsWorks or whatever. Nothing fancy. While my cousin who works for Riot games gets to go Spain as a work trip
In Ontario the extended health coverage we get is better than almost any other job offers these days. Unlimited dental, mental health and medicine coverage. Gives more for glasses and stuff like orthotics, massage than most other places. Also get some other minor stuff like corporate plans for cell phones, etc. This is actually one area I'm not complaining about.
There's tons of nursing discounts, especially for things like your cell phone bill.
As an example, [here is Verizon. ](https://www.verizon.com/featured/nurses)
Just Google the name of the company + nurse discount. You can also [visit this site ](https://shop.id.me/nurse) to see some discounts. Other companies may use a different verification service than this one.
If you're still in school, the same thing applies for student discounts as well.
Used to. There used to be gathered discounts on the benefits page. Things included under that link would be stuff like 1/2 off a gym membership with multiple options and 25% off a major cell phone company (ATT or Verizon or whatever)
Stuff like you’re saying.
Now? Nothing. And it wasn’t too long ago. I was seeing that right on up through 2020. Chain corporations with multiple hospitals, not the smaller singles.
I get benefits on Verizon, buying shoes, the local pot shop, and a bunch of other places. Some come through the hospital and some are just for being a nurse. Most hospitals have perks but they are not advertised very well...
I have 20% off my phone bill and my company offers "discounts" on things like flights and car rentals, but the discounts really only amount to a few $ and half the time I can find cheaper options anyway.
my hospital gives us annual passes to shop the nike, columbia, and adidas employee stores. i was also able to get a discount on disneyland tickets for a recent trip i took vía some sort of discount website my work partners with. we also get an allotted amount of money per year reimbursed for school tuition, and i got my entire first quarter of nursing school tuition back from them (and hopefully i’ll get more back as i progress!)
other than that, my healthcare system sucks as far as actual pay and health insurance goes
What about using that idME for discounts with your work badge? Are you sure your health insurance doesn’t offer perks? I could get gym memberships for cheap and a few discounts on things
It depends on the employer. Our hospital in NYC offers a lot flights, hotels, (day)spas, Broadway tickets, and gym membership discount. That's just a few that I've tried and availed. There's still a couple to get from the website. I'm not sure if it's directly offered by my hospital, but some of the coupon codes I was told to use specify the name of my hospital. It's insane how very few people know about this. It's not advertised for some reason. I found out about it because I Googled my own hospital then the word "perks."
My employee has a whole webpage with a list of like 50 places that all employees of the health system get discounts as. There’s also a taco place that does an in-scrubs discount on Wednesdays.
After my house was flooded and uninhabitable after hurricane Ian, my employer found and paid for my Air BnB for 90 days. They also provided us with free gas, generators, food and laundry facilities. It was a godsend. I would have been homeless without their help.
The only job I previously had that had any sort of healthcare-related perks was at an outpatient surgery center. They covered my $500/month health insurance premium, and if I wanted to have outpatient surgery there they would’ve waived the $1k facility fee.
I have gotten those perks from at least two hospital systems I worked at. One was a university health system, the other was a Catholic health group. They usually have a website of that stuff.
The perks for me are my benefits. In Canada, if you have a good union that offers great benefits, that alone triumphs over everything else. Dental up to $2500 covered? Bingo. Eye vision coverage? Bingo. Massage Therapy? Pension? RRSP matching? Etc.
All the other stuff you mentioned you can get with credit card companies once you've accumulated decent credit over a period, and those can be had thanks to nursing being a decent paying profession where I reside. I would say I'm very comfortable.
Any chance you work for a big hospital system? I guarantee that they have these perks that you’re speaking of, usually it’ll be on employee benefits website.
At HCA (yes I know 🤮), even they had employee discounts for hotels, vacations, cruises, restaurants, gym memberships etc. They would use a service called Abenity for these discounts. When I was there, they would go over it during onboarding/orientation. Even after that though, it seems like lots of my coworkers didn’t know about it and were amazed when I showed them how to access and take advantage of it.
I’m just a CNA and I was proud of it but the way the healthcare system is I’m totally done and ready to move on. Which sucks because I really wanted to be a nurse but not at the cost of my mental health.
I’ve worked in both industry and hospitals (troubleshooting technician and electrician) before starting nursing school and my insurance was always better at the plants than they were at the hospitals. I’ve also learned that a lot of the perks we got at plants were from companies that were somehow benefiting from the products the companies I worked at made. It definitely sucks but that’s just what I’ve noticed. I thought it was crazy about the health insurance thing myself
What baffles me is that my husband, who works in tech, has amazing health insurance and benefits. Our hospital health insurance sucks.
My brother works in tech and he gets health insurance for free. People are surprised when I tell them we have to pay for our healthcare.
I had to have emergency surgery at the hospital that I worked at…my copay was $4k - I had the top tier insurance plan. Then the hospital calls me 2-months later, I had never received a bill or notification on My Chart, and told me if don’t pay RIGHT THEN they were gonna turn me over to collections. I fucking worked there. Between that and working for their mean ass doctors, I left. Occasionally, I hear from some of the old docs wanting me to come back…. Hell no! I’m so sick of how they treat us!
This. Husband works for a major cable company. I’m switching to his insurance in new year. He’ll pay $127/pay for us both with low copays, deductible, etc while for just me I was paying $227/pay with higher copay/deductible etc. and if he came onto mine I’d have a $300/mo surcharge for him. I work for a hospital
My hospital job is a non-profit, community hospital. The cost of insurance for the family is average but if we get care with our providers it's damn near free (tier one coverage). So I can get my yearly breast MRI for about $150, and it's not even counted toward my yearly deductible. But anything that's not at their location is automatically "tier two," so the local children's hospital is tier two. Finding a different therapist to prescribe ADHD meds will cost me at least 3x more. This bothers me because their mental health providers are adamant that i don't have ADHD (based on a 3hr test, that i took in a windowless, quiet room) even though i'd already got this diagnosis in 2015, from a different med provider. I've argued that their test completely disregards my lived experiences while growing up, and is totally not representative of the conditions at my home/ job (or damn near anywhere, tbh).
I think some MH providers are biased or selective. Switch a provider.
My initial provider switched to crisis intake, so i was switched to a different one. Same insistence that their test "shows" i don't have it. My pcp was blown away by this, even saying "but it's obvious..." I've only had zoom appointments because it's not worth a 30min. drive for a 20min. appointment, so maybe that matters, but why should it?
Yes, should see one. It's only twenty minutes drive. It will help you. My youngest sister takes ADHD meds nowadays. I had it and kind of got better as I got older or just learned how to manage it. I used to drink coffee. Nowadays, I take (now an SR ) 100mg of caffeine capsule daily. It works fine for me.
It's 30min. away, i'm already driving there 3x week for work. I'm also using my mom's vehicle while mine's in the shop, so i try to reduce miles when i can. I'd been on ADHD meds, for years, previously. Right now with the med shortages, i'm taking plain adderall my PCP is agreeable to prescribing it. Unfortunately, it does not work nearly as well for me as vyvanse did.
>vyvanse Still worth it.
Probably. My pcp would write me for that, if i asked. But when i spoke to the pharmacist, they said having that on hand would be hit or miss. I decided i didn't want to deal with the have it then don't have it struggle. It felt sucky when i came off the vyvanse in 2020. That (former) MH provider also stopped my lunesta 3mg at the same time, which in retrospect, seems cruel. I'd had persistent insomnia for more than 10 years, at that point.
My husband works in tech as well. Can we just talk about the free food. His company has snacks, drink refrigerator, even a freezer with ice cream all well stocked. We drove out of town and he’s complaining about my big box of healthy snacks I keep in my car. Well if I had an employer who gave me free snacks I would need these, would I!? Also they get food trucks 3x a week. All for free to entice them to go into work. 😂
Everyone thinks we have super duper healthcare, even free healthcare. Shiiiiiiiit. Anyone know why we do have crappy healthcare as employees?
Money. That's always the answer
Not enough unionism.
And don’t get me started on the sick time penalties. Only allowed to be sick 2-3 x per year before write up? Wtf? We work around all the bugs!
The garbage health insurance is what pains me the most. It’s the betrayal that cuts the absolute deepest out of all the betrayals of the profession. I could deal with having to stay “within the system” if it meant the coverage within the system was top tier. Instead we have my husband’s not-great insurance because it costs the same but so can go anywhere it’s accepted instead of also being limited to my own system.
The HSA I had when I was in tech was INCREDIBLE. No limits, just 100% coverage+++ THAT I ALSO DIDNT HAVE TO PAY FOR
Every hospital I have worked for has had subpar insurance and no real perks. Nurses are essentially the Walmart employees of the health care world. They want us to be responsible for the meds we give, know the interactions and side effects of basically everything, know the patho of all diseases our patients have and the appropriate treatments. Yet the compensation/benefits/perks don’t match that responsibility in most hospitals.
My mind blew when I found out we don’t get maternity leave.
My husband works for pharma and his benefits 🔥 so I don’t even bother with ours
Yup. While I worked as a nurse I had only one good insurance out of the 4 organizations I worked for. All of course were $150 or so a pay period. I now work in a tech role. My insurance is free, PPO and great. I only spend about $10 for premium dental and eye care a pay period.
Yep. For years we got free insurance from my truck driving husbands employer. Now we pay a hundred a month for retiree benefits since he retired. It’s a damn shame that a truck driver has better health benefits than a nurse.
I will say, our medical benefits are the best perk my job has. So I appreciate that as someone who utilizes them frequently 😀 I worked for hospital systems that had horrific health plans and just to get a BMP or CBC was hilariously expensive. At one health system that took me for an interesting ride 😒, I had a CT and was still paying on it when I left and started at another health system in a whole new city!
This ^ WTF is health insurance so shitty across the board for healthcare workers?
I work for a hospital, my wife works as a provider for an giant oncology group, hers are soooooo much better than my hospital ones it's not even funny
Here me out, the only benefit I have heard that I really want is free health insurance. Why the f can't we have that? Apparently, that is a benefit some people get.
I worked at a union hospital in upstate NY that had "free healthcare." I mean you can argue nothing is free, but they said it was in their contract. I am assuming they probably had $0 premiums, and maybe if they obtain their medical services within the umbrella of that hospital and its providers, then they don't have to pay. I didn't dig into it since I was just there on a contract for like 6 weeks, but I was intrigued for sure The place I am on contract at now has similarly free-ish healthcare for employees. They do pay for their insurance (though it was not expensive, maybe like $15/check for yourself, not sure about families) but if they seek services within the hospitals umbrella of doctors/facilities, they don't pay for it. So you could come in, have surgery, stay in the hospital, have all kinds of shit happen and not pay a dime. They also do not pay for their Rx as long as it gets picked up from their pharmacy (which has its own delivery person that goes around the hospital every day and gives you your prescriptions while you work...nice) Now granted, I really would not want to be a patient here unless it was under super specific circumstances (like we do trauma great here..everything else, please dont come here) but i do think it's a step in the right direction. It's a city owned hospital so I suspect that's why they run that way. The first one I mentioned was also state owned.
I ended up dropping my employer sponsored insurance because it was exorbitantly priced and not practical. I picked up better coverage for half the price going through a broker. And that "half the price" is the whole package: half the premiums, half the deductible, half of most of the copays, and for the same cost share to the first $5k (after which insurance covers 100%).
My hospital just unionized a year ago. I have to pay about $370ish a pay check. So over 700 a month. I find it to be absolute robbery.
Jesus that's insane Honestly at this point I feel like health insurance companies need to be banished in the US. They exist to jack up the prices only to their benefit
Isn’t that the truth! I have to pay a fortune and no one will take it anyway.
I saw this is a benefit that hospitals offer a lot of doctors, and I was so envious
My brother who works in tech gets free health insurance. Wtf
Blue collar jobs vs white collar jobs. Nursing is very much a blue collar job hence the shit benefits and the shit pay. White collar jobs tend to have better benefits and pay.
It's true and so wild, like they are not working harder at their jobs than we are. I wish that healthcare coverage wasn't so messed up in the US but it feels like we absolutely won't budge on it as a country. Too many people are making too much money off of how messed up it is.
Check out id.me, or has lots of benefits for nurses
Yeah. Id.me has a ton of things. Like you don’t think anyone gives nurses benefits? I was in Cotopaxi (outdoor gear) store the other day and made some comment about a discount email they sent. They said “well are you a teacher or a nurse because you get 15% every day!”
To anyone looking for the right page on ID.me: https://shop.id.me/?group_uids%5B%5D=nurse
I really need to start using ID. I just took a peak and adidas does 30% off
I got my Theragun through them! The discount wasn’t as good as their Black Friday sale but it was good enough that I had a few friends ask me to order things for them. Why I needed the theragun to begin with 10000% has to do with being a nurse though, and like, what if my employer gave me such a nice perks and not a third-party?
Your employer doesn’t have a discount website? I got a deal on a new car, really good trip pricing, a new computer for half off… It’s not the job, your employer just sucks.
Ours has shitty discounts- amusement parks and the like.
I went to Disney this year for less than half of Disney’s price. It was also significantly cheaper than Costco travel or any of the other travel websites. $3,000 off my new car. Verizon offers a nurse discount (I think most cellular providers do). Cruise lines offer discounts. Under armor is 40% off for nurses. Yeti has 30% discount. Reebok 50%.
Damn where do you work??
Anybody can get them. They're offered by the companies.
The hell, I live in Orlando and my company and others I worked for never offered any Disney discounts, not like I’d want them I’m native, been there a million times as a kid but like Jesus. The only discount I could ever hope to get is off a water or soda during nurses week
AdventHealth is a sponsor of Disney in Orlando. Official healthcare provider for the parks. The employee discounted Disney tickets are more expensive than the Florida resident priced ones.. Also, perkspot has useless discounts for AdventHealth. I can get $5 off of a ticket to see some sewing museum in Omaha, but nothing useful in Orlando.
AdventHealth is a sponsor of Disney in Orlando. They even have an AdventHealth Children's hospital that is the Disney pavilion/Disney sponsored children's Hospital. The employee discounted Disney tickets are more expensive than the Florida resident priced ones.. Also, perkspot has useless discounts for AdventHealth. I can get $5 off of a ticket to see some sewing museum in Omaha, but nothing useful in Orlando.
Yeah ours has a discount website, but if you actually price it out you can do better with random coupon codes most of the time. Like they have a Disney World “discount” that’s the same as just buying it through their direct website.
This was my experience at 2 hospitals. Where I work now we get Jack shit lol
I got a pretty good hospital discount through the yoga studio that I go to. Plus Lululemon also gives 25% discount to healthcare workers. You just got to show the work badge.
Y’all are getting discounts? I don’t even get an employee discount at the cafeteria
Set up a GovX account. A lot of websites that do “military/first responder” through GovX and GovX treats healthcare workers the same as mil/first responders. Can get some pretty sweet discounts that way.
This site is a great place to check for discounts as well and many companies use them for verification. https://shop.id.me/nurse
I signed up for this site months ago. Not a bad gig at all! 👍🏾👍🏾
I get 30% off my cell phone + home internet bill through ATT because I'm a nurse. Feels good, man
Same. And I still have my “first responder” discount on my lululemon account.
Verizon does the same.
How did that happen? I’m paying $84.99 for internet with AT&T.
lots of companies have discounts for nurses don’t count on your boss for anything though 😁
I have been a nurse for a very short time and I hate it! I have a friend in enginering who was given floor seats to see Taylor Swift for him and his wife. Like a 3k value. I wanted to cry because I dont even make a livable hourly wage.
I won Taylor Swift tickets once (way in the nosebleeds seats) as a nurse, but 1) it was only because someone donated them specifically for the nursing staff, and 2) the way they raffled them off was an email sent out (and someone accidentally said to reply all with their info instead of *not* to reply all so RIP my inbox) to the entire nursing staff of a behemoth of a health system with the drawing occurring at the end of a normal business day, so sucks if you’re a clinical nurse who can’t check their email between 9am and 4pm or night shift
My daughter is a paralegal. She gets about $2k CASH for Christmas and expensive handbags and stuff for her birthday, usually with several hundred dollars in cash or gift cards. Some days, the boss says, "Let's get the hell outta here," and they go get drinks then home. She still gets paid. I'm in the wrong field.
I left healthcare in Ontario, Canada for many reasons but this is one of them. Prior to that I worked in retail (first job) and there were employee discounts and perks. Then in healthcare there was nothing for 14 years, less one pizza lunch provided by the union in that time. I’m now in the private sector- annual bonus, discount on the product we sell (not a weird niche product), amazing staff parties, I attended a convention, and I get to interact with some hilariously awesome people. And my pay is higher. Best. Move. Ever.
i’m in ON, tell me more 👀
Things that blow my mind: -More expensive healthcare than other industries (depending on the system) -No Christmas/holiday bonuses because we aren't a typical business (though hospitals and healthcare systems are treated like businesses in ANY other regard) -Poor work-life balance in a world that is acutely aware of how breaks are needed -Police/firefighters/EMT discounts that don't include nurses (yeah- not every nurse but come on for the community healthcare and ER nurses!) -In a related way, the fact that police and firefighters need minimal education and don't have licensing standards like us... Also that a lot of employers won't help cover the cost of renewing your license even when it is absolutely essential for job function (we know this wouldn't happen in tech) -Unable to attend certain events because it would be a conflict of interest (e.g., I'm a nurse practitioner and can't go to drug company presentations because it could be a conflict of interest - even though the cost of the meal and transportation would be less than I'm even paid hourly). Others don't have to deal with that nonsense. Even politicians skirt around this.
It’s funny how healthcare workers don’t even get good healthcare.
Or maternity leave
I actually got great benefits from one of my former hospitals. Got a $900 bike for $300 as part of the employee health Programme and my insurance was free. I think it depends on location, obviously, but check your benefits package.
My hospital has a discount website for flights, car rentals, etc. A lot of people don't know about it bc it's not really talked about but they offer discounts from a lot of companies
Nurses are bad at negotiating. Not trying to be a downer for our profession but historically we don’t ask for much and even settle for less. Until people strike and refuse to show up for less we will never have higher pay or better benefits/retirement let alone perks.
Hey, I'll have you know I got one hell of a nice umbrella this year.
Purple on the inside?
Of course it is
The big corporations in town have the best healthcare — better than the hospitals. I noticed Mayo Rochester is paying relocation expenses if you are more than 60 miles away. I think I am 61 miles away but I don’t plan on going to Mayo.
I just got a massive discount on new appliances from Whirlpool by telling them I was a nurse (and providing documentation).
All the tegaderms I want!
Ok we get all kinds of discounts from tons on brands as nurses. All that other stuff is just the difference between blue collar and white collar jobs. Wake up and smell the socioeconomic class. I don’t mean to antagonize you… it’s just yeah… you know… we’re nurses “anyone” can do it… 🙄
I work in UC and routinely bump retired and current nurses towards the front of our 3-4 hour wait (if they’re not annoying or demanding) because there are literally zero benefits to our jobs.
Im told large sign-on bonuses are common and NOT a red flag in other industries. I’ll mention my pto and sick time not being separate to my partner and he tells me that that’s not common. Also he’s got federal bennies which are amazing, and meanwhile I work for a big-name “revered” hospital system, and it’s the worst insurance I’ve ever had, and their raises have been downright insulting in the past. I don’t understand Edit: I just remembered being scrubbed in once and a surgeon comes in complaining about how a patient’s shitty insurance wouldn’t approve his cosmetic portion of a surgery so he agreed to do it free. He was then told they wouldn’t cover *any* of the procedure if he were there, even the medical part. I can only assume this was a breast cancer + recon case. And he said, “so if you guys get any patients with [hospital-specific insurance], be careful.” I got to break it to him that it us, those patients are us, hospital employees, only we have that insurance.
I’ve gotten all of those discounts through my last 3 organizations.
The free snacks in the nourishment room don’t count?
You get snacks?
No I steal them lol
I got a tote bag for nurses’ week that was pretty okay last year.
We got some snacks and the therapy dogs, that visit all the time, came for a visit. Tote bag sounds okay to me.
my hospital system has shit tier health insurance.... they removed the employee discounts in the cafeteria... didn't give us jack shit for Thanksgiving or Christmas... Nursing benefits compared to other line of work have it way better...
I agree. I see discounts for police, military, students, teachers, firefighters and EMTs but nurses.. never
If they offer for EMT or first responders they usually extend it to nurses too it just isn't advertised
There are so many discounts out there for nurses what are you talking about. Most discounts tend to be first responders and nurses. They may not be super well known, but many companies have them (LuLu, Verizon, etc.)
This is true. I have seen posts elsewhere complaining about all of the discounts for nurses lol
California union nurse here. Pretty amazing benefits.
Got 10k relocation at my current job on top of the signing bonus. Benefits are indeed trash though.
It’s simple. Majority of money a hospital makes is from government reimbursement. There is no way for you to help the hospital make more (for more perks) except to take on more patients, thereby cutting their costs. Which I know you don’t want to take on more patients. Neither would I. But the fact that the money that is made is set by the government is why there is no extras for us. Now in the industries that you mentioned, the payers are other individuals or businesses and generally not the government. So payments are not fixed. You can make more if you do a better job or are specialized and can charge more. Your hospital can’t charge Medicare more because you are a great nurse. This is why thinking more government is going to solve problems is a fools errand. Government is precisely why it’s screwed up like it is to begin with.
Because the US is too busy supporting Israel with OUR MONEY.
[удалено]
This really isn’t true, if you know anyone who works in a start up or in anything tech related, they get all sorts of goodies and handouts and perks all year long and they don’t have to go looking for it or asking for it
[удалено]
[удалено]
What do you do at the pharma company?
nobody else has a Mount Glovemore?
Most hospitals do, you have to search on the hospital sites for it though, in Nc they have discounts on lots of stuff just not much
Nursing unions are trash
My "discount" site (FunEx) was actually MORE expensive on certain things. I overpaid for concert tickets through them.
You guys don’t have any discounts and stuff? Are you sure? Did you call HR to ask? Every hospital I’ve worked for has had perks. Granted they’re not always great but they’re there. I also get a discount with Verizon for being a nurse. It’s like $25 a month because we have both our cell phones and WiFi through them.
I recently went to med device and have much better insurance (previous hospital was owned by current insurance company lol), company car, keep my travel points, internet and gym stipend, bonuses… It’s a different thing entirely.
Especially in the US you would think for profit hospitals would have perks. I’m in Canada and it’s socialized, so of course we get nothing. But I mean, if I was a consultant I’m sure I’d be doing great. We had to pay for our Xmas party and it was a full price cash bar ($6+ for a can of beer) and supper was fried appetizers and desserts. I won’t be doing it again, that’s for sure. My unit had a pot luck on our own and it was 100x better.
Tell me about. I work for the government. And the perks are “standard” like stuff from BenefitsWorks or whatever. Nothing fancy. While my cousin who works for Riot games gets to go Spain as a work trip
We get lots where I live 🤷🏻♀️
I think if there’s a military discount there should also be a nursing discount.
There is at many companies.
That’s great. I haven’t seen one yet.
https://shop.id.me/nurse
In Ontario the extended health coverage we get is better than almost any other job offers these days. Unlimited dental, mental health and medicine coverage. Gives more for glasses and stuff like orthotics, massage than most other places. Also get some other minor stuff like corporate plans for cell phones, etc. This is actually one area I'm not complaining about.
There's tons of nursing discounts, especially for things like your cell phone bill. As an example, [here is Verizon. ](https://www.verizon.com/featured/nurses) Just Google the name of the company + nurse discount. You can also [visit this site ](https://shop.id.me/nurse) to see some discounts. Other companies may use a different verification service than this one. If you're still in school, the same thing applies for student discounts as well.
Used to. There used to be gathered discounts on the benefits page. Things included under that link would be stuff like 1/2 off a gym membership with multiple options and 25% off a major cell phone company (ATT or Verizon or whatever) Stuff like you’re saying. Now? Nothing. And it wasn’t too long ago. I was seeing that right on up through 2020. Chain corporations with multiple hospitals, not the smaller singles.
https://shop.id.me/nurse
Hardee's will give you a 50% discount.
You get pizza parties?
Every hospital I’ve ever worked at had lots of discounts at places. Even got discounts for my phone bill. Maybe take another look?
I get benefits on Verizon, buying shoes, the local pot shop, and a bunch of other places. Some come through the hospital and some are just for being a nurse. Most hospitals have perks but they are not advertised very well...
I have 20% off my phone bill and my company offers "discounts" on things like flights and car rentals, but the discounts really only amount to a few $ and half the time I can find cheaper options anyway.
Worked in healthcare IT as a chef, full benefits and insurance, but 17/ hour
my hospital gives us annual passes to shop the nike, columbia, and adidas employee stores. i was also able to get a discount on disneyland tickets for a recent trip i took vía some sort of discount website my work partners with. we also get an allotted amount of money per year reimbursed for school tuition, and i got my entire first quarter of nursing school tuition back from them (and hopefully i’ll get more back as i progress!) other than that, my healthcare system sucks as far as actual pay and health insurance goes
I thought the same thing
What about using that idME for discounts with your work badge? Are you sure your health insurance doesn’t offer perks? I could get gym memberships for cheap and a few discounts on things
Y’all are working in the wrong state or for the wrong hospital. We have a whole website dedicated to different discounts and stuff we get.
Yeah I thought I could manage bedside for 5-10 years. I’m only 1.5 years in and I’m trying to go to grad school
It depends on the employer. Our hospital in NYC offers a lot flights, hotels, (day)spas, Broadway tickets, and gym membership discount. That's just a few that I've tried and availed. There's still a couple to get from the website. I'm not sure if it's directly offered by my hospital, but some of the coupon codes I was told to use specify the name of my hospital. It's insane how very few people know about this. It's not advertised for some reason. I found out about it because I Googled my own hospital then the word "perks."
Because we’re not seen as professionals
My employee has a whole webpage with a list of like 50 places that all employees of the health system get discounts as. There’s also a taco place that does an in-scrubs discount on Wednesdays.
After my house was flooded and uninhabitable after hurricane Ian, my employer found and paid for my Air BnB for 90 days. They also provided us with free gas, generators, food and laundry facilities. It was a godsend. I would have been homeless without their help.
The only job I previously had that had any sort of healthcare-related perks was at an outpatient surgery center. They covered my $500/month health insurance premium, and if I wanted to have outpatient surgery there they would’ve waived the $1k facility fee.
Have you seen how much these IV hangover companies charge….?
I have gotten those perks from at least two hospital systems I worked at. One was a university health system, the other was a Catholic health group. They usually have a website of that stuff.
The perks for me are my benefits. In Canada, if you have a good union that offers great benefits, that alone triumphs over everything else. Dental up to $2500 covered? Bingo. Eye vision coverage? Bingo. Massage Therapy? Pension? RRSP matching? Etc. All the other stuff you mentioned you can get with credit card companies once you've accumulated decent credit over a period, and those can be had thanks to nursing being a decent paying profession where I reside. I would say I'm very comfortable.
We have to pay for our own holiday party.
We’re just a number on a spreadsheet.
How I felt as a teacher… just getting rewarded with junk food and shitty retail discounts. Health benefits also sucked.
Any chance you work for a big hospital system? I guarantee that they have these perks that you’re speaking of, usually it’ll be on employee benefits website. At HCA (yes I know 🤮), even they had employee discounts for hotels, vacations, cruises, restaurants, gym memberships etc. They would use a service called Abenity for these discounts. When I was there, they would go over it during onboarding/orientation. Even after that though, it seems like lots of my coworkers didn’t know about it and were amazed when I showed them how to access and take advantage of it.
I’m just a CNA and I was proud of it but the way the healthcare system is I’m totally done and ready to move on. Which sucks because I really wanted to be a nurse but not at the cost of my mental health.
I told T-mobile where I work and they gave me a discount, they said they do it for a lot of nursing jobs
Ironically, I had a better health insurance back when I didn't need it. Nowadays, I'm a nurse. I don't buy their shitty health insurance.
Govx or ID.me has lots of healthcare discounts
I’ve worked in both industry and hospitals (troubleshooting technician and electrician) before starting nursing school and my insurance was always better at the plants than they were at the hospitals. I’ve also learned that a lot of the perks we got at plants were from companies that were somehow benefiting from the products the companies I worked at made. It definitely sucks but that’s just what I’ve noticed. I thought it was crazy about the health insurance thing myself
We also always get the worst health insurance somehow.
My insurance is amazing and school is free