Glossary

Per diem nurses work shift by shift, with no set schedule and no benefits, in exchange for a higher hourly rate. For a critical access hospital, a ready pool of them is what stands between a 5 a.m. callout and an expensive agency invoice. This guide explains what per diem nursing is, how it compares to PRN and agency work, and how a small hospital builds a pool it can rely on.

A critical access hospital is a federally designated rural hospital, capped at 25 beds, that earns cost-based Medicare reimbursement in exchange for meeting strict distance and emergency-care rules. This guide breaks down how a hospital qualifies, how its payment model differs from a standard hospital, and what the designation means day to day for the nurse managers who staff one of the roughly 91 critical access hospitals in Texas.