Nurse News: 15K NYC Nurses Strike, 31K Kaiser Nurses Plan Walkout, Kaiser Hit With $556M Fraud Payout, Fake Nurse Charged, and NPs Named Best Job of 2026

Welcome to Club Nurse. I'm Colton Lord, your host. By you being here today, it shows me that you are someone who wants to learn, grow, laugh, connect, and just let your emotions flow. We are here to share real stories and hear real life experiences from real people. You are not alone in this, and Club Nurse is here to show you that. Don't forget to follow the show and share today's episode with someone you love. Now let's dive into today's conversation. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Club Nurse Podcast. My name is Colton Lord, your host. If you've never been here before, if this is your first time listening to the Club Nurse Podcast, welcome. I think a lot of you are listening to this or hearing this podcast on the nurse.org website, which is great. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you'd like to keep up with the news or things that are going on in nursing or in healthcare. They are posted over there as well. So if you stream most of Podcast on Apple or Spotify. Great. Make sure you follow the show. Subscribe. Otherwise, you can continue catching all these episodes on the nurse.org website. Nurse.org/news. That's where all these articles go. You can read through all these news stories, all the breaking news, things that are happening in nursing and healthcare, all the things. Every week, these podcast episodes are embedded. The most up-to-date nurse news is going to be in each article. And then if you'd like to see past episodes, I do feature guests here and there. I was doing a weekly guest, but we're kind of starting. to focus more on the news. And there will be featured guests as we continue to go forward here and there. But weekly, I will be bringing you the news, the breaking news, the things that I am reading, the things that I am seeing, and report it to you and just chat about it. It's not super in-depth. It's just kind of to give you the breakdown as to what's going on. Now, I think it's important that we stay up to date and that we know what's going on in the world of healthcare and nursing, as that is what we do. I think it's good to be in the know. I think that there's a lot of negative Negative energy around news, and I get that for good reason. Uh, there's not a lot of great things that you hear when you think about news. So, you know, it's a work in progress. Uh, I have some ideas in my head of other things that we can kind of throw in there. Um, but right now I am bringing you the most up-to-date nurse news from what I've got today on this Tuesday, January 20th. Uh, so let's get into it. Last week we did a deep dive into the nursing strikes in New York City, and that is still ongoing. If you want more on that, again, go listen to last week's news episode. We kind of did a deep dive into it. But as of today, as of this morning on January 20th, that New York City nursing strike has stretched into its 8th day. So it's still ongoing. Those nurses are still out there. They're still striking. They're still picketing. And you know what I've noticed in these strikes? That the bad press, the negative press for nurses is I think a lot of people are like, oh, they're just money hungry. They just want more money, more money, more money. And it's like, yes, that's always a topic and a, you know, a motivating factor in these strikes, but that's not the main reason. You know, if you ask Those nurses who are out there, who are standing out there and striking and picketing— and I keep wanting to say pivoting— picketing, uh, and striking and using their voice and banding together. The thing that you're going to hear, the through line, the, the main topic that you are going to hear with these nurses, these people, is safety. Safety for the patients, staffing, things that provide better patient care. And ultimately, all this comes back and ties back into the patient and the safety and the whole reason that nurses are there anyway. Of course, Pay is important. Without proper pay and being able to feel like you can make a decent living without being so stressed out all the time and having to pick up overtime and burning out, you need adequate pay. And that's especially for places that, like New York City, like Los Angeles, like, you know, Honolulu, these are very expensive places to live, like Boston. And if you're not compensated correctly, it all comes back around. This gets into the morale of the unit, to the You know, directly to the patient care. I think I would much rather have a nurse who's rested, who has a higher morale than somebody who is burnt out, depressed, tired, exhausted. Like, and that is the through line here. It all comes back to patient safety. So I just wanted to highlight that now because I do think that a lot of things that I've read and seen are, oh, nurses are just, you know, just want money. Like, you can't just be thankful for what you have. You already make good enough money. And it's like, eh. Yeah. No, absolutely not. So I just wanted to touch base on that. It's all about the patient safety. It's about safe staffing and the pay does tie into that for sure. So we're here with you in New York City. We feel you. You're on day 8. Keep going strong. We believe in you. All the nurses around the country and maybe around the world, I don't know, are with you, are watching, are banding with you. Um, but on the topic of strikes, I did see that Kaiser, 31,000 Kaiser nurses are planning to strike across California, Hawaii, and this is from San Francisco to San Diego. So 31,000 Kaiser nurses and healthcare professionals across California and Hawaii have issued a 10-day notice to strike with walkouts possible from San Diego to Oakland and even Honolulu starting on January 26th. So be keeping your eyes on this and the developing story. This is, as of right now, we're 6 days away from this. We'll see if they come to some kind of agreement, some kind of conclusion, but right now the strike notice is in effect. And we may see more walkouts, up to 31,000 nurses striking and walking out as of January 26th. And again, I don't need to get so deep into this, but what are they asking for? Safe staffing, wages. These are what have stalled the negotiations and are at the center of the dispute, um, following the expiration of the union's contract and an unresolved unfair labor practice charge. This strike could impact care at dozens of hospitals and hundreds of clinics, making it one of the largest potential healthcare labor actions of the year. So the core issues that were cited by the union, like I said, safe staffing, wages and economic security, retirement security, and bargaining process concerns, which the union has alleged that Kaiser has used disputes over union communications to halt negotiations and apply pressure outside the agreed-upon bargaining structure. And really for the retirement security, many of the healthcare professionals represented by the union do not have pensions, raising concerns about long-term financial stability. After physically demanding careers. And this is a big one. Pensions are not around that often anymore. Um, but it's true. You know, these healthcare workers, these nurses put themselves out there for their whole career, their whole life. And then at the end, you know, if there's not like a financial security blanket for them, you know, it does raise some concerns. So I love this. Speak up again. If you are somewhere that has a union, be part of it. Be, you know, use your voice. This is your voice, your opportunity to be heard, be seen. And I know that it requires energy and I get that. And I think that's the hard part for a lot of people is a lot of nurses are already burnt out on the fritz and then, you know, to then put forth more energy to fight for what you think you deserve. It can be a lot, but it's important. Get involved where you can. So for the Kaiser facilities, what happens next is if negotiations do not resume, the strike could begin as scheduled on January 26th. Union leaders say the goal remains reaching an agreement, not prolonging labor action. For nurses and healthcare professionals watching closely, the situation highlights broader industry tensions around staffing, burnout, nonprofit health system finances and growing role of labor action in healthcare advocacy. We will be keeping our eyes on this story as it develops, so stay tuned. If you want the most breaking news and you want to hear as soon as these, these stories come out, be sure you are following nurse.org on Instagram. It's nurse_org and checking out the website nurse.org/news. And these articles are posted in, in real time. And when these things are happening and these stories are breaking, you'd be shocked at how fast these stories get released. So if you want to keep following, be sure to follow along with thenurse.org/news. All right, so I guess Kaiser is just in the headlines this week. Kaiser was hit with record $556 million Medicare fraud payout and what it means for nurses. I think that this headline may, you know, you may hear like the fraud with Kaiser and be like, what is this? You know, what does this mean for me? And I think it's really the scrutiny behind, you know, our documentation and maybe being more monitored or what we're documenting because the nursing documentation supports The doctor's diagnosis and everything that we're doing there, correct? So that's where nurses may see that in practice, is that maybe being more under a magnifying glass. So nurses who work in Medicare Advantage settings may encounter more scrutiny around documentation, internal audits, and coding workflows as regulators and healthcare systems respond to this and other cases. Uh, the settlement also reinforces the importance and potential legal weight of raising concerns through compliance channels when documentation practices feel inaccurate. So This was this came to light with some whistleblowers in the Kaiser system. It appears that there were multiple whistleblower complaints filed over several years, which the government later joined under the agreement. The whistleblowers, who included at least one physician and a former coding professional, are expected to receive roughly ninety-five million dollars combined as their share of the recovery. So Kaiser released a statement. They did not admit to wrongdoing. They really just came to the settlement and agreed to it to avoid the delay and uncertainty of. Prolonged litigation, what was reported. And so basically, if you want to know what they were doing, they violated the False Claims Act by submitting unsupported diagnosis codes on Medicare Advantage records that resulted in higher reimbursements. And this is according to the Department of Justice. And I guess some of these codings were like, you know, were being updated like weeks to months after the patient visit. And that, you know, that's where the government was saying that staff was pressured to add diagnoses like well after they were being seen. And what this would do would then increase the reimbursement for these facilities due to the inflated diagnosis code. I know it's kind of complicated. I don't even— I'm going to be totally honest. I don't fully understand all of this. I don't— as nurses, you know, we're not really involved in a lot of this. But that's what's being reported is that with inflated diagnosis codes gets higher reimbursements. And I think that there was just a lot of things that were Maybe not ethical and went against the morals of these providers. And that's where they got in trouble because these things were reported by several whistleblowers. Hey nurses, looking for exclusive discounts? Nurse.org has you covered with deals on everything. Save big on the essentials you need to excel in your career. Don't miss out. Visit nurse.org/discounts for the latest discounts made just for you. Couple quick stories here to touch on. Fake nurse injured disabled patient during G-tube procedure. Employer charged with fraud. I'm I'm so tired of these fake nurse stories. I mean, obviously they're great to report so that we could see them. I just can't believe that they're happening. Just be aware out there, a fake nurse with stolen credentials worked in 18 facilities despite having no training or license. Unauthorized procedure seriously injured a patient resulting in a first-degree assault charge. And I also don't understand this. I tried to look more into this to understand exactly what the nurse was doing, but they said that this person, so this nurse who was not a nurse, performed a gastrostomy tube procedure on a patient. What is this? I don't understand. What kind of procedure unless they were putting things into the G tube because as nurses we're not putting in G tubes. I mean, NG tubes, OG tubes, but at a facility, I'm confused by this. I would like to maybe know more, but that is what was reported. Yeah, so the financial impact in the fraud was pretty substantial. They were billing facilities $133,000 plus dollars for Medicaid qualified services that were performed by an unqualified individual. Stop it with the fraud. It's weird. It's unsafe. I don't understand. There has to be millions of other things that you can do fraudulently that aren't going to. Affect people directly in their lives. I mean, if you're going to be a fraudster, come on, don't do it to people physically. Like, this is weird. It's crazy. And there must just be all these loopholes that people are able to jump through that these things even happen. It's wild to me, but stop it. Stop with the fraud, please. Not that any of you listening are fake nurses. I would not. I would hope not anyway. Another quick story. Feds say Chicago nurse sold fake Ozempic. What nurses need to know. This is really what I'm going to say about this. I'm not going to dive so deep into the story. But what I'm gonna say is if you're out there and you're, you have a side hustle and you're trying to make some extra cash on the side doing, you know, aesthetic nursing or IVs or anything like that, be very mindful of who you're working for and make sure you know their credentials and what's actually being given. Because I'm sure that this actually is more common than we think. Just, just be very careful. Make sure you are vetting these places you are going to work for. Side hustles are great. It's nice. It's a very— I've done it, a huge break from the bedside doing these. You know, I've, I've worked places where I've not necessarily administered like the semaglutide, but, you know, people were prescribed it and I would hand it to them and they would take it home. Just be very, very, very mindful and understanding of who you're working for, their credentials, and that these things are legitimate because this could get people in a lot of trouble. And you always just want to protect your license first, right? That's what we're taught in nursing school is protect your license first. All right. Let's wrap this week's news up with this headline of nurse practitioners named best job in healthcare, STEM, and top 100 jobs of 2026. This is awesome. I think the nurse practitioner route is really great. It's a great option for a lot of people because there's so much you can do with it. It's, it's a way, I think, for people who are just like, you know, I'm done with the bedside, I'm ready to move on. It's, it's just a pathway. And I love this. I love that there's some recognition there. Best job in healthcare. I mean, that's awesome. I think it's maybe because there's so much flexibility and things that you can do. Their job satisfaction, and this is my opinion, I'm not reading this, it's probably higher because again, they're not directly Involved with like the day after day after day of like the patient care at the bedside, but it's awesome. Yes, ranked number one on U.S. News and World Report's 2026 list for the best job overall, best healthcare job, and best STEM job. High pay, strong demand, and excellent work-life balance continue to make nurse practitioners one of the most future-proof careers in the U.S. I think with AI and all these rises in AI taking people's jobs, I think being a nurse at this moment in time, it may be hard, honey, but I think it feels great because. AI is not coming for our jobs, at least at this moment in time. I can guarantee you that. So I just love this. If this is something you're passionate about, if you wanna be a nurse practitioner, if you're ready to advance your career, go for it. Why not? But don't do it for wrong reasons. I think sometimes people are just like, I'm bored, I need to do something else. Or, you know, just make sure it's something you wanna do. You're investing your time, your money, your most important and pure asset and resource is your time. So be very careful where you are giving that time But if it's something you wanna do, go for it. It'll open so many different doors for you. Nurse practitioners outperform careers in tech, finance, and management, proving healthcare remains one of the strongest job sectors. All right, let's highlight some of the other healthcare professions that were also in this category. PAs, that's physician assistants, respiratory therapists, nurse anesthetists, occupational therapists, dental hygienists, speech and language pathologists. So this is great. Again, there's so many ways to get your nurse practitioner and The thing about it, I know people who have gone this route. It's not like nursing school where you have to be in the program and like be like taking all these credits at once. You can kind of, but again, I'm speaking to things that I've seen. Maybe this is dependent on program, but you can kind of go at your own pace. You know, if you only have time to take like a few, maybe like 2 classes or something one semester, or maybe even one, you can do that. Again, this is just my own personal, just what I've seen through people that I know who have gone to school. So if you're busy, if you've got a lot on your plate, like you don't have to be like a full-time student from my understanding. So look into it if this is something that you are interested in. There are programs everywhere. The Bureau of Labor Statistics are projecting a 35% employment growth for nurse practitioners over the next decade, much faster than the average for all occupations. All right. So that's it this week on the Club Nurse Podcast. That's all I've got for you for the news this week. I hope that you all are taking care of yourself. Practicing some self-care, whatever the hell that even means. Just being kind to yourself. It's hard out there, man, especially in this career, in this job. I think a lot of us just really struggle to find that balance of taking care of ourselves and allowing ourselves time and space to just breathe and just be. So I hope that you get a little bit of time, a little moment in your life this week. My name is Colton Lord. Again, this is This is Club Nurse, the Club Nurse Podcast. This is Nurse News. Uh, we'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much. Also, I'll add one more thing. Uh, we do have a guest on this week. Jenny Finnell. It is CRNA Week. Oh my gosh. Happy CRNA Week. I forgot to say that. Happy CRNA Week. We do have Jenny Finnell. She's a CRNA. She's an amazing, uh, she's got an amazing platform. She's built an amazing brand and business. So be sure to check out this week's episode, which will, uh, drop on Wednesday, January 21st. Uh, but yes, happy CRNA Week. From the bottom of My heart, I wanted to thank you for being here at Club Nurse. I hope you gained something valuable from today's episode, and if you did, remember to share this episode with someone that you love. Follow me on socials at Nurse Daddies or Colton Lord Seventeen, and be sure to follow nurse.org to stay informed with all of the hottest healthcare topics. Until next time, take care of yourself the way you take care of everyone else. Love ya. Bye.