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UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill is implementing a new staffing system that changes how nurses sign up for extra shifts they want to pick up, typically in “hard-to-fill” time slots like nights and weekends.
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Those “premium” shifts will be posted at a higher pay rate to incentivize nurses to sign up in advance, UNC Health spokesperson Alan Wolf said. As the date of the shift draws nearer, the pay rate decreases. This model is intended to “encourage nurses to sign up earlier, so there isn’t as much last-minute scrambling.”
The health system says it is not a “bidding model” and calls claims of such a model “misinformation,” but that hasn’t stopped online outrage about the announcement. One video decrying the change from Las Vegas-based creator and advocate Nurse Erica has 25,000 likes on Facebook and 61,000 on Instagram.
The creator behind the Nurse Erica account told The News & Observer she was contacted by multiple UNC Health employees who shared an email announcement with her in which the hospital refers to the new system as “BidShift” and explains that “shifts are generally awarded based on the lowest bid submitted.”
Shift bidding is controversial because it can include nurses bidding on how little they’re willing to work for. But Wolf says that’s not what’s going on here.
The new system — which includes elements of dynamic pricing — will “help [UNC] control costs” by reducing the use of travel nurses, Wolf said. Travel nurses are short-term contract laborers who travel to different facilities to help fill shortages. Wolf maintains “it will not reduce [nurses’] pay” or change their regular salaries and schedules. The model applies to extra, historically unpopular shifts.
Nurses, however, aren’t guaranteed to work the shifts they express interest in. If multiple nurses request the same shift, “the system will help our staffing office make sure they have the right skill mix and training, and then offer the shift to the first (qualified) nurse who signed up,” Wolf said.
“If it’s a critical need, like we have multiple nurses call out on a specific unit, we have the flexibility to increase the premium,” Wolf said. “So there is some element of flexibility built into the system that can adjust the premium rate.”
Hannah Drummond is a nurse at Mission Hospital in Asheville, which is not a part of the UNC System, and the chief nurse representative there for the national union National Nurses United. She believes UNC is engaged in a “newfangled scheme” to increase competition between nurses.
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“This is part of what breeds a bad working environment,” Drummond said, referring to increased uncertainty in scheduling and pay rates. “It’s very backwards to me. They’re not really focused on staffing if your incentive to work goes down the closer you get to the shift. I’ve never not been guaranteed a shift I signed up for.”
By denying the new system is a kind of shift bidding, Drummond said she believes the health system is using “a line to make it murky and hide the buffoonery that they’re up to.”
Filling unpopular shifts was once a “cumbersome, time-consuming, manual process” at UNC, Wolf said. Allowing nurses to sign up for them directly online will streamline the process.
Word of this change has drawn condemnation on social media, including from National Nurses United.
“Management at UNC Health wants nurses to outbid each other on shifts to see how little they can pay a nurse to work in bad conditions,” National Nurses United posted on Facebook. “Union nurses see this for what it is: The latest alarming attempt to cut costs and normalize gig work. What really changes a hospital is collective power working together, not against each other.”
UNC Health, however, characterizes it as a win-win for the hospital and the nurses, meeting staffing needs while giving nurses “more choice and flexibility.”
Still, UNC Health is “gathering feedback and will adjust the system as necessary to meet the needs of our patients and our valued employees.”
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This story was originally published August 5, 2026 at 10:00 AM.