Why Choose BrightStar® Medical Staffing in Park Ridge?

Not all medical staffing agencies are created equal. BrightStar^® Medical Staffing Park Ridge is dedicated to meeting the placement needs of hospitals, schools, corporate clinics, assisted living facilities and other settings in need of high-quality healthcare staff.

With a roster of experienced and screened employees ranging from highly skilled nurses and specialized clinical personnel to administrative, operational and clerical employees, we make your recruiting job easier.

Quality and Character Count

Because our medical staffing agency is committed to providing staff that meet the highest standards of integrity, quality and reliability, our rigorous hiring protocol requires every employee to be thoroughly screened and evaluated. This includes:

• In-depth screening, licensure/certification verification, drug screening and background checks
• Trained and current in bloodborne pathogen, HIPAA and CPR guidelines
• Fully bonded and insured
• Required confidentiality agreements
• Minimum of one year of experience

Your Go-To Staffing Source

We know you’re busy and don’t have time to chase down the personnel resources you need — whether that’s for per diem staffing or long-term placement. That’s why you can count on us to be your reliable partner to keep things moving forward when you have short-term demands or your organization is experiencing rapid growth.

We’re also aware that many of today’s healthcare workers are overwhelmed and burned out. Using a dependable medical staffing agency can help alleviate that stress by bringing in reinforcements to give your hard-working, over-burdened staff relief so they can recharge. Here are some of the top ways we support employers in the medical field:

• Filling open shifts for short- or long-term absences.
• Improving employee retention. Covering shifts for PTO and supporting your employees’ overall well-being is critical in today’s burned-out workforce.
• Staffing new positions. Hiring mistakes are costly. This is a great way to try out new employees with less risk than bringing them on with a full-time commitment.
• Reducing administrative work and costs. In addition to payroll taxes and insurance, there are other expenses associated with staffing.
• Enhancing organizational efficiency. Less time spent with recruiting efforts, background checks and other important hiring tasks.

Compliance Matters

BrightStar Care provides the highest level of compliance when providing medical staffing services to healthcare organizations throughout Illinois. We work hard to ensure the highest level of quality when providing staff to our healthcare partners. We are licensed by the Illinois Department of Labor as a Nurse Agency, accredited by The Joint Commission, and many of our policies voluntarily exceed the minimums set by both oversight bodies. 

The Illinois Nurse Agency Licensing Act (NALA) that became effective July 1, 2022, has made compliance for Nurse Agencies and Healthcare Facilities using supplemental staff more important than ever. The penalties for non-compliance are significant under NALA, for example:

• Section 14.2 (225 ILCS 510/14.2): Willful violations of NALA or any efforts to obstruct an investigation under NALA can result in a Class A misdemeanor. Each day a violation of NALA continues constitutes a separate and distinct offense.
  
  
• Section 14.1 (225 ILCS 510.14.1): Civil penalties can total up to $10,000 per occurrence.
  
  

NALA requires that any entity who engages in the employment, assignment, or referral of nurses or certified nurse aides (CNAs) to a healthcare facility is subject to the Act, this includes nurse registries. NALA also requires that: 

• Section 4.0 (225 ILCS 510/4): No health care facility shall use the services of an unlicensed nurse agency.
  
  
• Section 13(e) (225 ILCS 510/13e): Nurses or nurse aids employed, assigned, or referred to a health care facility by a nurse agency shall be deemed to be employees of the nurse agency.
  
  
• Section 14(b) (225 ILCS 510/14b): Each nurse agency shall have a nurse serving as a manager or supervisor of all of the nurse agency’s nurses and certified nurse aides.
  
  

This creates complicated issues for nurse agencies still using an independent contractor model. Agencies referring 1099 independent contractors to healthcare facilities can create devastating liabilities for the healthcare facilities and their leadership without their knowledge. 

Just recently, the federal DOL sued Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services, LLC (CHMS), alleging $19 million owed as a result of unpaid overtime. Clipboard Health and other 1099 agencies provided a large amount of CHMS’ workers (Link). In January 2023 alone, DOL announced 9 settlements against healthcare facilities and/or medical staffing agencies for overtime violations and 5 of those involved nurses misclassified as independent contractors. It remains to be seen how IDOL may penalize healthcare facilities in the state using independent contractors referred by agencies. NALA does provide in Section 14.1 that investigations shall take into consideration the responsibility of healthcare facilities under Section 12 for supervising nurse agency employees assigned or referred to the facilities. 

At a minimum, protect your own organization and ensure that all outside agencies your healthcare facility contracts with have an Illinois DOL Nurse Agency license.  

Further NALA resources are available here:
https://labor.illinois.gov/
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/
Nurse Agency Guidance September 2022

Park Ridge is Our Home

Our team is a part of the community, which is why we’re passionate about helping local employers — and the local workforce — thrive.

When you choose BrightStar Medical Staffing Park Ridge as your trusted partner for medical staffing solutions, it improves patient care throughout our area.