Can a hospital really not answer this question?

Question

I'm looking at a small town (probably too small) to invest in.  There is a small hospital, and I'm curious about the potential of providing nicer (maybe even furnished) rentals to traveling staff.  I know I've seen this work in larger communities.

I emailed the hospital the following:

Hello, this may be an odd request.  I grew up in *********, MO (near *********), but still travel to ********* a few times a year.  I'm considering buying a duplex to stay at while I visit. I'm interested in renting out the other side.  I'm curious if there's much of a demand or shortage for higher quality housing for traveling and short term medical professionals.  I don't know if you have traveling doctors and nurses.  Any insight would be much appreciated!

From hospitalGood morning,We do have doctors who travel in for outpatient clinics and other traveling staff, but I’m afraid we would not be able to speak to their rental needs. However, we might suggest speaking with someone from one of the local real estate agencies for another perspective. We hope you have a great day and we wish you well in your future endeavors.

My question is this: can they actually not talk about the general rental needs of traveling staff?  I imagine whoever wrote this either doesn't care to properly answer, or doesn't know they legally can.

I see this as a "if mom says no ask dad" situation, however I want to make sure this is a question someone at the hospital can actually answer before I keep digging.

John Kesner · Answer

@Pat Jackson

My understanding of the traveling nurse/dr industry is that the staff are either given a housing allowance or the placement agency that finds the work also provides the housing. The hospital is not involved in finding/providing housing.

Facebook groups are a great place to start. There are a bunch that are devoted to travelling med staff looking for housing. The placement agencies are also prowling there as they are constantly looking for housing. Get a hold of a placement agency and they will likely be able to better answer your questions.

Jerome K. · Answer

I read the response as

“I don’t know, and this isn’t our area of expertise. Your question would be better suited for an industry expert”.

Dan H. · Answer

Big companies often have many policies set by legal.  They are suit cautious.  I would state suit paranoid but there are a lot of stupid law suits.  We have many policies set by legal.  for example, I cannot provide references for people that have worked for me.  I am supposed to (you can tell by the wording that I am not the best at following all rules) refer all such inquiries to HR which will simply confirm the employment.  They will not indicate strengths, weaknesses, or anything from reviews or personal files.  We also automatically get our email deleted after 60 days.  This policy is so that if they ever get sued and inquire about obtaining emails the company can respond that they maintain no archive of email.  It saves the expense of ever getting a subpoena requesting that we provide all email related to a certain item; if you do not have it, you cannot provide it.

I suspect your response contains simple facts and conveys no opinions.  I suspect this is likely a policy set forth by their legal department.  I suspect the person who answered your email answered within the guidelines that they were provided and were told to not express items of opinion in such inquiries.

Matt Devincenzo · Answer

@Pat Jackson I think you're reading it wrong....my reading of the email isn't that they don't care to answer you or think there is a legal issue. I  read it as they are simply expressing that they are unaware of what those rental needs may be. As in they are not involved in it directly and therefor don't know how to answer your question. So you need to either speak to someone outside the hospital (like a property manager) or someone else inside the organization i.e. one of the traveling professionals that is aware of the normal method of being housed after being placed at that hospital.

Nik Moushon · Answer

To me this sounds like they have a contract with someone to supply or find rentals for their staff. You could try going in in-person and see if you get a more straight forward response. Or just reply back asking for question. I don't see why they could just tell you have have a contract for this stuff.

Clayton Thayer · Answer

The last town I lived in (in hindsight, probably too small to live in :/) many of the traveling nurses and other non-resident staff were supplied by a third party company. I had a friend that rented a house to that third party on a contract basis as the nurses and other staff preferred to stay in a rental rather than a hotel. I don't know how to answer your question specifically, but would recommend seeing if another company provides traveling nurses or ER doctors for the hospital.

Also, email may not be a good medium for this question. Sometimes people will not state all they know in an email but will if you show up and ask the janitor for instance. One way to check if medical staff are supplied by a third party company would be to look at traveling nurses advertisements for that small town on a job board such as Indeed or Linkedin. Just a thought.

Can a hospital really not answer this question?

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