And you thought thought that Travel Nursing sounded SO rosy and glamorous, HA!
The hospital where Ted has accepted a contract with is way over the top with testing and orientation. None of this was disclosed before we signed the contract!
Since this is his first assignment, we aren't sure what to make of it. Is every hospital this ridiculous or is this experience strange just because this is his first time out as a travel nurse and they are trying to make sure he is actually qualified? We won't get a clearer picture of that until our next assignment, I guess.
Here is a snapshot of what tests he was required to take online as part of the hospital orientation, none of which he gets paid for (about 8.5+ hours). The photo is all of the successful completion certificates. 17 certificates of completion and counting.
The required quizzes and timed tests include:
- Basic administration knowledge (60 questions timed)
- Identification test for 12 arrhythmias
- ICU Nursing test (60 questions)
- Patient safety and quality test (50 questions)
- 20 separate quizzes on this hospital Policy after watching 20 videos
The hospital called yesterday and informed him that in his first three days of orientation there would be three more tests to pass as a requirement. Who does that? Have someone move more than 1000 miles, take endless tests and THEN test again only to send them home unpaid if the tests aren't passed?
Recap of what we learned so far when talking to recruiters: Get email specifics in writing to every detail you discuss as a recap with your recruiter and get EVERYTHING in writing. Everything.
In the original batch of conversations with the recruiter, my husband was clear about being guaranteed pay for 36 hours per week. Miraculously, the contract arrived and nowhere was the clause about guaranteed minimum hours. Even worse, now there was a clause that he was subject to up to 24 low census hours. Again, who does that??? Drag a family across the country only to have them miss one a full week of pay? As if that wasn't bad enough, my husband was informed by the hospital that his first three days of work will be only 11.5 hours per day and not 12. Again, his pay is dropping like a rock and the recruiter will not live up to his original agreement because it was not in writing.
(As an update, we now feel that it is probably a policy of this very large Agency to have it's recruiters conduct business this way as it has happened with a second recruiter. The large Agencies are more willing to take new nurses as they are less aware of the pitfalls and will accept lower pay packages. I feel that they knowingly exploit new travel nurses knowing that more fresh recruits will fill the void once the experienced nurses catch on to the unethical methods and move on. We have since left this large Agency and moved to a smaller firm with a much better reputation.)
We still hold out hope that this travel experience will turn out just fine and that we will enjoy living in a new region. We certainly have learned a pile of things already that will be quite useful for the next go-around in negotiating for assignments.
Are any of you having the same experiences with your hospitals and recruiters? Or are we the only suckers falling for the smoke and mirrors?
For those Travel Nurses who wish to take the stipend instead of the corporate housing, here are a few websites I found helpful when figuring out where to choose our next home.
Apartmentratings.com - This is a website where tenants can review a property. Keep in mind, it is possible that apartments give themselves a glowing review and dissatified tenants seem to squawk the loudest, but the collective reviews should give viewers some insight to life on the property.
city-data.com/income/ - This site color-codes a map which shows average income for an area. Users can visually see what surrounds a property economically.
google.com/maps - Consider performing a google search on a property and select the "street view" to browse the nearby buildings and streets to get a feel for the neighborhood. Also click on the maps feature to see what restaurants or grocery stores are in proximity. Type in the name of your city and the word "businesses," then click on the map.
Zillow.com - This site shows the property costs to purchase and to rent of the surrounding homes in the neighborhood.
Trulia.com - Under the Local Info tab users can find general neighborhood crime stats.
Familywatchdog.com - This site shows the volume of sex offenders in your vicinity and who they are.
Also important to note, renter's insurance is a requirement for leasing an apartment. It is common for a 300,000 liability limit to cover possible water damage you may cause. In many cases insurance companies have a minimum personal property policy that is $15,000 of coverage. That is way more than we need, but just raise the deductible and that offsets costs.
A couple important tips to note: Our insurance carried back home in Wisconsin is not licensed in the state we are moving to so we had to pick a national company. We chose AllState. They cover every state except for Massachusetts. A three month/13 week policy doesn't exist with insurance carriers so a traveler must get a policy for a full year. The agent gave me a couple of tips for future reference. First, no need to pay for the full year of a policy. Pay monthly or quarterly then cancel the policy if you won't be renting somewhere new. If you ARE renting in another location or state, then she suggested that we call in a change of address instead of canceling and starting a new policy. The benefits of executing the policy this way includes not having to get another credit check done and therefore your credit score isn't affected. Secondly, a policy at a new address might be significantly higher due to the new area but your policy cost will stay the same as quoted for the year. Cost would renew at the one year mark.
Renter's insurance is cheap. For us it cost $33 which covers us for 4 months or $98 for the full year. I recommend using an insurance company that covers all the states you might be interested in working in to save yourself some time and hassle for future moves.
Holy cow, the Travel Nurse chaos of new assignment paperwork is upon us! If you thought your Nursing License was meaningful, think again. Each hospital quizzes travelers to be "sure" they know their stuff. They don't just accept the validity of a license no matter which state it comes from. Just the hospital orientation ALONE has been 8.5 hours of unpaid, video watching followed by quizzes with a "must pass" quota.
Here is a tip for beginners: From the time you leave your old job to beginning the new job, be sure to leave several days open so that you can fulfill all the paperwork, orientation, and tests without having to also go to your current job. My husband is completely slammed for time as his recruiter only told him it would consume 3 hours "max" to complete everything. Ridiculous! Desperate times call for desperate measures, so he called in sick one day this week to get several things done. This wasn't an issue since he had used NO sicks over the last 18 months. As it turns out, he now knows to leave several days open for next time. Apparently, each hospital has their own set of tests and orientation videos so this, I'm sure, will be a repeated process quarterly for us.
Next, with all of the tiny little cities that had openings for assignments (with populations under 5,000) we instead selected a larger city and we chose to take the stipend of $1,700 a month. We did some research before we made the decision and discovered that average rents for a 1 bedroom apartment averaged about $550-$750 per month. We know that we likely will opt for scant furniture so we are are prepared to live very simply for the first assignment and see what we will adjust for next time. It also helps that I will be flying back home after three weeks to work on the house some more, therefore, I can pick up more personal effects that we would like to have with us on the road.
Electricity, internet service, and renter's insurance are the only three expenses we will need to supply. Three month leases are more expensive than a 1 year so the cost goes up slightly. We will also be increasing the distance from the hospital so that is also factored in for gas costs and time.
The property manager of the apartment we selected recommended a furniture rental company, however, it is located 70 miles from the complex and is expensive. $170 delivery/pickup fee followed by a $237.99 monthly rental fee for the basics. This cost also is more expensive for 3 months leases, by the way. Too expensive for us, so we agreed to wing it. We do not have children and we are not retired, so as long we have a coffee maker and a comfortable place to sleep and shower, then the rest is negotiable.
One thing to be aware of; if you are a hotel or airline points hog and believe in credit card churning, know that each apartment complex you apply for quarterly performs a hard pull on your credit report. That is 4 extra pulls per year which may affect your credit score slightly. For more on the glorious and thrilling world of credit card churning and it's perks for free travel, I read The Points Guy blog every day. Hotel points and frequent flyer tickets will really come in handy for those times when an apartment won't be ready for us in time and we will need a hotel. That gets expensive if we pay out of pocket. Therefore, it is my job to work the credit card signup bonus angle during this lifestyle experiment.
Next up.... figuring out how to create a portable household so we don't have to keep buying over and over for each assignment. Call me crazy, but I'm fine with the two oversized tv trays I found today to be used as a dining table and computer stand. I've heard from other travel nurses that they swear by Space Bags so I picked up a pack of 5 today. I'll need to figure out the bed thing next! Good thing I lived this way for most of my 20s and have some experiences to draw upon.
Tomorrow those challenges begin.
More than 15 years in the making, it has been my husband's dream to begin travel nursing. My dream (we met three years ago) was to travel around the country as a self-employed consultant. With a brand new marriage under our belt, we have decided that now is the time to abandon the snow-belt and head for warmer climates, 13 weeks at a time.
Our first strategy was to start the search for an assignment in our own state. We live in Wisconsin, a Nursing Compact state. We have a house to sell so thought living close would buy us four additional days a week for 13 weeks to prepare the house before market. It didn't quite work that way!
My husband (I will refer to him from here on out as Ted) signed up with nine different companies. Each company requires a lengthy application process online, each one about 45-60 minutes long. Next comes filling out the skills checklists, simple but also lengthy. Then, brace yourself for the onslaught of phone calls, six days a week. Always remember, recruiters are salesmen. They are in business to make money so they can paint a lovely picture for prospects....at first.
Ted has 17 years of experiences as a Critical Care nurse. Each recruiter, at first, told him to expect 15-30% MORE than what he was currently earning as a staff nurse. This was exciting!
As the search for assignments continued, each subsequent call from recruiters that came in explained how he wasn't going to earn that amount initially because he didn't have the travel experience. What??!!! Bait and switch!! Instead, each and every recruiter's first offer, regardless of the which state, city, and hospital only offered $800 per week. That is an amount that is less than what he makes now! The pay is even less if we accept the provided housing option. I understand if this is how it is... however, none of the recruiters told him this upfront, but rather broke it to him in small soundbites as each assignment presented himself. Additionally, it appears that every assignment initially offered were jobs they had left over because the positions were hard to fill, located in the tiny villages of 5,000 or less population with unacceptable terms built in, such as a low-census requirement. Again.... WHAT!??? If we are giving up both of our jobs to travel, we DO NOT find idle time due to low census a fair thing!
So, after trying repeatedly to be clear of what kind of work we would accept, we had no other option than to look outside of the state. After several more weeks of guilt-trips and pressuring from various recruiters, Ted interviewed and was offered an assignment. This one was on the East Coast, really far from our home base with a start date 12 days out. Now it is crunch time!! The pay was not awesome as they advertised, and the benefits were not either, however, it was in a larger city and it was work. We found it acceptable for a first assignment.
In order to make up for the income loss we chose to take the stipend on our very first assignment. Stressful! Fortunately for us, I had been an apartment property manager before so I knew what questions to ask, what to avoid, and new the tricks of the trade to avoid pitfalls. We are "hoping" that experience helps us break even on our first assignment.
Here are just a few of the things that swing into warp speed for us:
- Ted printed off 29 pages of forms, tests, and requirements he has about four days to comply with to be eligible for hire.
- A physical (that we pay for ourselves)
- A TB skin test (that we pay for ourselves)
- A drugscreen (that they pay for ourselves)
- A colorblindness test (online)
- Fax all the forms and completion certificates in
- Empty the house - can you say ESTATE SALE?!
- Choose the few items that will fit in our car to take with us
- Find a realtor and list the house
- Paint the house interior in it's entirety
- Mulch the entire yard
- Adjust all mail to online-only
We are now believers of what we previously heard was true. Larger Travel Nurse companies have high overhead and lower pay. If you are a first time traveler then perhaps a larger company is easier as they have more assignments nationwide. As an experienced traveler then perhaps a smaller company will serve us better in the future. They pay higher and there is less smooth-talking happening during the search for assignments.
Either way, despite how different the bill of goods is that we were sold on embarking on this adventure, we still remain optimistic and excited about what lies ahead. We can't WAIT to leave Wisconsin and the sour political climate in the state with low job prospects. We can't WAIT to meet new people in the new city. We can't WAIT to get four days a week off together on the same schedule! In our current life Ted works six days a week 2-10p and I work 8-5p, completely opposite. While this is going to be a challenge it will also be a great adventure!
In days ahead I will share what I find about where to locate housing and expose the resources we're using to choose where to live, work, read reviews, discover the cost of living, what I find for work on the road to keep busy, etc.
We're hoping that sharing our experience with you will help make your foray into Travel Nursing just a little easier. I welcome your feedback and any tips you have found to be helpful along the way by commenting below.
Bon Voyage for now... I have to PAINT!
