Employees of Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center are now eligible for new and enhanced benefits designed as pathways to help them eliminate existing student debt faster, pursue additional professional education, and advance their careers.
The goal of offering PBRMC’s Pathways benefits is to support and retain employees and attract a strong workforce, especially frontline nurses, technicians, therapists, and other clinicians and caregivers, along with support personnel, according to a press release from the hospital.
“We are excited about the PBRMC Pathways Program,” says Denise Rushin, director of human resources. “The goal is to support and retain our current employees and attract a strong workforce.”
Benefits include a new student loan repayment program that enables employees with outstanding student debt to consolidate their loans, reduce interest rates, and benefit from employer-sponsored payments. For most clinical employees, PBRMC will directly pay a portion of loan premiums as long as the employee remains current with payments, offsetting student loan balances up to $20,000 per employee.
A new employee reimbursement program has been established for licensure or certification renewals required for all job classifications and can be used for any license or certification testing or renewal not already offered for free by the hospital.
In addition, a long-standing tuition reimbursement program that provides employees up to $5,000 in tax-free reimbursement annually is being expanded and can now be used for continuing education related to any role within the hospital. Previously, employees could only use the tuition reimbursement program for studies in their current field of work.
“We appreciate our employees in all they do and want to support them,” says Rick Naegler, chief executive officer for PBRMC. “Through these benefits, we hope PBRMC Pathways will ease the burden of student debt and allow employees to focus on achieving their goals and career success.”
To learn more about career opportunities at PBRMC, visit pbrmc.com/career-opportunities.