Selecting Travel Nursing Agencies
Finding reliable travel nursing agencies is probably the most important detail for a traveling nurse to pay attention to. After all, the agency is how you will find your assignments, get paid, accrue benefits and more. Agencies match available travel nurse jobs with available travel nurses. Because their financial fate hinges on the agency, it is important that travel nurses find a good agency. The first thing travel nurses have to consider is that it is the agency, not the hospital, which pays their salary. The hospital cuts a check to the agency, which then uses that money to pay the travel nurse. Before applying at the travel nursing agency the nurse should ask how often they will be receiving checks from the agency, do they get paid weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, or do they only get paid when the job has been completed. It is important to know how often you can plan on receiving a check so that you will be able to plan a budget. Talk to other nurses who are employed through the agency, find out how happy they are with the agency's payment plan. Try to find out how often travel nurses employed through the agency are working. Are they able to find employment twelve months a year if they want it, or do they find that they have long periods of waiting in between jobs? If the travel nurses who are working through the travel nursing agency have long periods between jobs find out if that is due to personal choice or a lack of available travel nursing positions. When you are considering a potential nurse travel agency find out what their policy is for travel expenses. Some travel nursing agencies pay the travel expenses of their nurses, other agencies deduct the cost of traveling out of the travel nurse's salary. Some agencies even have a policy that requires the travel nurse to pay their own travel expenses. Other agencies provide a traveling allowance, they provide a certain amount of money for the nurse to travel to their new job, if the nurse's travel expenses exceed that amount the nurse is responsible for the additional cost. Travel nurses typically drive to their new jobs but on some occasions they choose to fly. The way that the traveling nurse agencies handle the nurse's travel expenses will make a big difference in how the travel nurse budgets. Talk to the travel nurses who are already employed by the travel nursing agency about the living arrangements. Most travel nursing agencies find housing for their nurses. Talk to the other travel nurses about how accessible the hospitals are to the housing. Find out if the housing is typically well furnished. Ask if the housing facilities include niceties such as housekeeping or if the agency just looks for the cheapest possible place. Other things that you might want to consider asking before you select an agency is how long nurses typically remain with the agency. You will want to find out how long the agency has been in business. You will also want to know if your pay rate and hours are guaranteed. Ask the agency what types of benefits they offer their travel nurses. |