A traveling nurse, or ‘travel nurse’ is a registered nurse who takes on short term employment assignments, often a significant distance from home. These assignments last typically from ninety days to a year. Nurses and employers that find it a mutually accommodating relationship may choose to make the job permanent.
Traveling nurses basically are people unencumbered by family obligations and who are comfortable spending periods of time in unfamiliar places. Most often, a travel nurse will find some enjoyment in seeing new places. Some veterans in the industry have a number of contacts with medical institutions that need temporary help on a periodic basis. A travel nurse in this situation will do his or her own contracting for assignments. But more commonly, traveling nurses will work through placement agencies.
How a Traveling Nurse Company Operates
A placement agency in the nursing field is sitting pretty. The nursing profession has what seems like a permanent shortage of active members and many health institutions are chronically understaffed. Staffing levels for nursing has become a major national issue, with legislation being introduced and passing at the state level, establishing minimums for nurse staffing. So an agency that is in the business of placing qualified nurses is trading in a valuable commodity.
As a result, you don’t have to look too far into the industry to find traveling nurse companies that make lots of glamorous promises to certified nurses who will agree to contract with them. $500 and $1,000 bonuses for each contract signed are an example of the enticements that can be commonly found. Companies working with a reward system like that may be asking nurses to contract with the company for a set period of time, allowing the traveling nurse company to commit to multiple placements.
The Nurse and the Traveling Nurse Company
More typical, however, is the arrangement wherein a nurse contracts with an agency on a per-placement basis. The RN may be held on the traveling nurse company roster; however there is no commitment beyond a current placement other than to consider future offers.
There are a number of good reasons to work through an agency, if you are a travel nurse. The contract negotiations can be left to the company staff. The RN can set parameters: geographic area, a minimum salary, type of work setting and so forth. Traveling nurse companies have contacts with multiple sources for job placement and have a vested interest in maintaining those relationships. The nurse can leave the job search process to the agency.
Traveling nurses pay some portion of their salary to the company. Often, that loss is balanced by other perks that the traveling nurse company may negotiate for their RN such as a housing allowance, health insurance and so forth. Short term placements are usually paid at a premium rate anyway, so the net to the traveling nurse may be near or equal to a good rate of pay for registered nurses in the area. With housing costs covered, the nurse and the traveling nurse company have done well and the healthcare facility has gotten past another staffing crisis.
