Lawsuit Alleges WellPath Paid Travel Nurses Improperly for Overtime Hours

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A proposed class and collective action claims healthcare company WellPath has failed to pay travel nurses proper overtime wages for weeks in which they worked more than 40 hours.

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The 19-page lawsuit says that WellPath, formerly known as Correct Care Solutions, has violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and Kentucky Wage and Hour Act. In particular, the suit alleges WellPath travel nurses “routinely” worked more than 40 hours—and typically over 80 hours—per week yet were not paid at the proper time-and-a-half rate for these overtime hours.

The company’s travel nurses provide healthcare services to “vulnerable” patients in correctional facilities, behavioral hospitals, treatment centers and elsewhere, and are paid stipends that include a “baked-in bonus” when assigned to a location over 50 miles away from their homes, the suit explains. However, the case alleges WellPath does not include these stipends or bonuses when calculating regular hourly pay rates for overtime purposes.

This so-called “stipend pay scheme” has caused travel nurses—who often work 12 hours a day, seven days a week—to be “systematically deprived” of proper overtime wages by WellPath, the complaint charges.

The plaintiff worked as a travel nurse in multiple correctional facilities across Kentucky and Georgia between January 2022 and March of this year, the filing says. As the suit tells it, the woman “regularly” worked over 40 hours in a workweek and typically more than 80 hours. For assignments located far from her home, WellPath purportedly paid the plaintiff a weekly stipend of $955, which included a $300 bonus, but failed to factor in these funds when determining the woman’s regular and overtime pay rates, the case claims.

The proposed class and collective action lawsuit looks to represent all hourly, non-exempt WellPath travel nurses who received a stipend at any time during the past 5 years.

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