Original reporting on staffing, contracts, licensing, CMS rules, and the strikes nobody covered. Twelve years bedside, ICU, psych, and the road.
SAVE, PAYE, and ICR repayment plans are phasing out July 1, 2026. Nurses on these plans must act now to protect their PSLF count and prepare for the new RAP plan.
Healthcare workers face 5x more violence than any other industry. In 2026, at least 20 states enacted new laws — and a federal bill with teeth awaits a Senate vote.
600+ nurses at UMC New Orleans will walk out May 1 in a 5-day ULP strike. LCMC Health has dragged out contract talks for over two years with no deal in sight.
Two new federal bills target private equity ownership of hospitals and nursing homes, citing 11% higher mortality in PE-owned facilities and routine staffing cuts.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota workers walked off the job April 20 at five Twin Cities nursing homes, citing stalled contract talks and unsafe staffing levels.
475 nurses at Boston Medical Center South filed a 10-day strike notice for April 30–May 3 over staffing cuts, pension elimination, and benefit reductions.
NCSBN updated the NCLEX test plan April 1, 2026 — minor rename, unchanged weighting. But pass rates have slipped to 86.7% after the post-NGN spike.
State Medicaid rate cuts, OBBBA provider tax restrictions, and the CMS staffing mandate repeal are converging on SNF nursing.
Teamsters Local 2024 nurses at Corewell Health East voted 90% to authorize a strike over staffing ratios, eliminated pull pay, and a cancelled student loan repayment program.
DOGE federal grant terminations are dismantling nurse-staffed public health programs. $49B cut, $150M in COVID response, school nursing contracts gone.
Nurse.org's 2026 survey reversed three years of recovery: satisfaction down to 47%, 43% plan to leave bedside, 27% assaulted at work. Full breakdown.
Massachusetts nurses voted 98.2% to authorize a 1–3 day strike after filing an NLRB charge over Baystate's non-union float pool proposal tied to patient ratios.
Kansas HB 2528 strips the Kansas Board of Nursing's authority to fine nurses over license renewals, voids non-practice violations back to 2025, and adds Senate confirmation of Board members.
PeaceHealth settled a WSNA unfair labor practice charge: system-wide NLRB notices must be posted across WA, OR, and AK affirming nurses' right to strike without losing coverage.
CMS proposes a 2.4% Medicare payment bump for SNFs in FY2027 — plus MDS submission changes that tighten documentation from 4.5 months to 45 days.
Nursing schools turned away 65,000+ qualified applicants in 2024 because they didn't have enough faculty. A bipartisan bill proposes $15M annually to fix it.
CMS proposed CJR-X on April 10 — a mandatory nationwide bundled payment model for joint replacements that puts SNFs back under hospital cost pressure.
Michigan nurses at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital are past day 220 of their strike. The NLRB rejected a key unfair labor practice charge.
A triage nurse was stabbed in the head at SSM Health DePaul Hospital in Missouri while helping a patient. The pattern it represents is not new.
CMS released the FY 2027 IPPS proposed rule on April 10, proposing a 2.9% hospital payment update.
The NCSBN 2026 Environmental Scan finds 40% of U.S. nurses plan to leave the profession within five years — a workforce crisis with no quick fix in sight.
A new 2026 State of Nursing Survey shows job satisfaction has reversed three straight years of post-pandemic recovery. Financial necessity is why most are still showing up.
Effective January 1, 2026, Joint Commission Goal 12 made hospital staffing a named National Patient Safety Goal for the first time.
HHS repealed the 2024 federal nursing home minimum staffing rule in December 2025, effective February 2026. What changed, what stayed, what it means for 1.7M SNF nurses.
CMS proposed rule would require insurers to respond to non-urgent prior auth requests within 24 hours. The shift in administrative burden on nursing staff.
Proposed 12.5% HHS funding cuts and H-1B visa fee hikes threaten rural hospital staffing pipelines. What this means for travel nurses and rural healthcare RNs.
Four states are advancing mandatory nurse-staffing ratio bills in 2026. What the proposals require, the hospital pushback, and what RNs can do right now.