Ballad Health posted its first-ever net operating loss for the year that ended June 30, and it was a big one as the system finished with a $40 million deficit after losing $22 million in the fourth quarter. Ballad Heqalth’s CEO says costs for contract labor, also known as travel nurses, exploded at Ballad between fiscal 2019, when they were $32.8 million, and 2022, when they hit $149.1 million. They rose by 62% in 2020, 61% in 2021 and 74% in 2022. In the year that just ended, that increase was only 8%.