AMN 2017 Annual Report

8 Risk Factors that May Affect the Demand for Our Services Economic downturns and slow recoveries could result in less demand from clients and pricing pressure that could negatively impact our financial condition. Demand for staffing services is sensitive to changes in economic activity. As economic activity slows, hospitals and other healthcare entities typically experience decreased attrition and reduce their use of temporary employees before undertaking layoffs of their regular employees, which results in decreased demand for many of our service offerings. In times of economic downturn and high unemployment rates, permanent full-time and part-time healthcare facility staff are generally inclined to work more hours and overtime, resulting in fewer available vacancies and less demand for our services. Fewer placement opportunities for our temporary clinicians and physicians also impairs our ability to recruit and place them both on a temporary and permanent basis. In addition, many healthcare facilities utilize temporary healthcare professionals to accommodate an increase in hospital admissions. Conversely, when hospital admissions decrease in economic downturns, due to reduced consumer spending, a rise in unemployment causing an increase in under- and uninsured patients or other factors, the demand for our temporary healthcare professionals typically declines. This may have an even greater negative effect on demand for physicians in certain specialties such as surgery, radiology and anesthesiology. In addition, we may experience more competitive pricing pressure during periods of decreased patient occupancy and hospital admissions, negatively affecting our revenue and profitability. During challenging economic times, our clients, in particular those that rely on state government funding, may face issues gaining access to sufficient credit, which could result in an impairment of their ability to make payments to us, timely or otherwise, for services rendered. If that were to occur, we may increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our days sales outstanding would be negatively affected. If we are unable to anticipate and quickly respond to changing marketplace conditions, such as alternative modes of healthcare delivery, reimbursement and client needs, we may not remain competitive. Patient delivery settings continue to evolve, giving rise to alternative modes of healthcare delivery, such as retail medicine, telemedicine and home health. In addition, changes in reimbursement models and government mandates are also impacting the healthcare environments. Our success depends upon our ability to develop innovative workforce solutions and quickly adapt to changing marketplace conditions and client needs, come into compliance with new federal or state regulations, and differentiate our services and abilities from those of our competitors. The markets in which we compete are highly competitive and our competitors may respond more quickly to new or emerging client needs and marketplace conditions. The development of new service lines and business models requires close attention to emerging trends and proposed federal and state legislation related to the healthcare industry. If we are unable to anticipate changing marketplace conditions, adapt our current business model to adequately meet changing conditions in the healthcare industry and develop and successfully implement innovative services, we may not remain competitive. Intermediary organizations may impede our ability to secure new and profitable contracts with our clients. Our business depends upon our ability to maintain our existing contracts and secure new, profitable contracts. Outside of our managed services contracts, our client contracts are not typically exclusive and our clients are generally free to offer temporary staffing assignments to our competitors. Additionally, our clients may choose to purchase these services through intermediaries such as group purchasing organizations or competitors offering MSP services, with whom we establish relationships in order to continue to provide our staffing services to certain of our healthcare facilities. These intermediaries may negatively affect our ability to obtain new clients and maintain our existing client relationships by impeding our ability to access and contract directly with clients and may also negatively affect the profitability of these client relationships. In addition, our inability to establish relationships with these intermediaries may result in us losing our ability to work with certain healthcare facilities. Consolidation of healthcare delivery organizations could negatively affect pricing of our services and increase our concentration risk. Healthcare delivery organizations are consolidating, providing them with greater leverage in negotiating pricing for services. In addition, we have seen an increase in our clients’ use of intermediaries such as vendor management service companies and group purchasing organizations that may also provide organizations with enhanced bargaining power. These dynamics each separately or together could negatively affect pricing for our services.