How To Reach The Elusive $100K Travel Nurse Salary
One of the most pervasive myths in travel healthcare is the potential to earn a six-figure travel nurse salary while jet-setting across the country. It certainly sounds appealing, and plenty of recruiters or agencies will try to sell you with that exact same message–but do you actually have that much earning potential as a traveler? Here’s our semi-short breakdown of five tips you can follow to earn your way towards $100k. If you just got off a brutal shift and five tips are way more than you want to read right now, click here to skip to the summary with our take on the issue. 1. Find cold weather, small towns and high-paying states Earning the most as a traveler often means going where the money leads, regardless of the location or harshness of season weather. This means you’ll be headed north in the winter, swapping with the “snowbirds” in states like Illinois or Wisconsin to cover gaps in staffing. It can also mean working in small towns and underserved locations that have trouble recruiting travelers, retaining staff nurses or that just aren’t that popular destinations. Generally, working where people can’t, don’t or won’t will earn you more through potential bonuses and higher pay packages. You also need to be aware of what state offer routinely high pay packages year-round, like California, Texas and Massachusetts. Peppering in jobs from these states can help boost your earning potential. 2. Work when everyone isn’t Not many people want to work during the holiday season from November to January, so jumping on a short-term holiday contract is a great way to build your travel nurse salary. Holiday pay typically matches overtime rates. Speaking of overtime, adding in extra shifts is always an easy way to get more money from a travel assignment, so look for overtime opportunities when you can. Important note: Make sure you know the exact overtime stipulations of your contract before committing to more hours. Some hospitals may not offer overtime pay that matches up exactly with state laws. Some agencies may offer “blended” bill rates–which has no difference in pay between regular and overtime hours–in states that charge overtime when working more than eight hours a day, as opposed to 40 hours per week. You should be able to discuss these details clearly with your recruiter. 3. Always take the housing stipend If you’ve established a tax home and are eligible to take a tax-free housing stipend instead of using company housing, taking the stipend means more money in your pocket in most cases. It can be a bit risky and a huge hassle, since the task of finding housing now lands on your shoulders, but you can often find housing that’s less than the total stipend, letting you save the extra cash. There are tons of online resources (Airbnb is very popular among travelers) to find quick, affordable housing. You can check the rates for per diems, along with meals and incidentals by state by visiting the General Services Administration website. This shows the maximum rate offered by location, not the general rate, but it can still help you gauge how much you may receive for an assignment. 4. Look for rapid response or strike opportunities Nurses who stay flexible with their assignments can make great money responding to strikes or other unexpected staffing problems at a hospital. Crisis rate pay packages are often significantly higher than standard, adding up to $10 or more per hour to your pay. Keep in mind these jobs are fleeting and tough–you may get to the job to find the situation has resolved itself before you’ve even started, and you must have all necessary compliance docs ready at a moment’s notice to jump on job opportunities. You also won’t get tons of flexibility on job shifts, since you’re there to help during a critical period. 5. Specialize Nursing specialties that are more in demand or require extensive training will often pay more. Specialty bill rates between hospitals and agencies range from 2 to 10 percent higher than standard rates, which means higher pay packages overall. Specialties that commonly see these higher rates are ICU, L&D, CathLab, ER, OR, PICU, NICU and CVICU. Standard rates are associated with more common positions like Medical/Surgical, PSYCH, PEDS and Postpartum. Our summary If you skipped to the bottom, here’s the short answer if you want to make $100,000 a year as a travel nurse. Work as much as you can; at every available opportunity; in places you may have never wanted to visit; in economical housing; in extreme weather climates; during most holidays; with the lowest amount of downtime possible; in difficult or highly specialized positions. Also ignore the fact that a portion of those wages will go towards insurance, travel, compliance and tax home expenses, regardless of whether they are offered by your agency. If that’s not an ideal answer, it’s certainly not an ideal situation. There are travel nurses out there who do earn up to $100,000 a year, but they will be the first to tell you it’s not easy. It’s up to you to realistically decide what you want from your travel nurse career, and your recruiter and agency should be there to help you make informed decisions at every turn.
Travel Nurse Jobs: Top 10 States in Spring 2018, Summer Market Predictions
There’s been a big shakeup in state rankings for where travelers are applying for jobs, according to Staff DNA job board data. Most of the movement is a result of the annual summer “migration”, where travelers who came south from their home states for warmer weather are heading back north, but there are a few surprises among the ranks. The main takeaway is the expected March spike in job applications wasn’t as high as we thought, although there was a gradual increase in the volume of applications in March and April. Part of the slower increase can potentially be attributed to the record-breaking flu season we experienced this year, which caused a large push for swamped healthcare facilities to offer contract extensions earlier. More extensions mean a delay in job applications, so we could see an increase in job applications by the end of this month, but we expect that number of submissions will plateau going into June as travelers lock down their mid-year, vacation contracts. “We’re not seeing additional needs at facilities, but instead it’s a transferring of needs,” said Oren Lavi, a director of client advisory at LiquidAgents Healthcare. “The net number of new nurses entering the market is not as high, but the job demand is still there as hospitals look to fill backfill positions and curb seasonal turnover.” Let’s take a closer look at changes to our state rankings. Ohio, Illinois, Arizona and Michigan crack the Top 10 Four states that typically hang around the middle of the pack in job applications quickly climbed the ranks this spring. The most dramatic jump was Ohio, which moved up seven spots, almost replacing New York in the top 5 most applied for states. Nevada makes the highest jump; Virginia falls from the top Nevada moved from No. 32 to No. 19 in the rankings, showing the most dramatic increase in job applications. Part of the state’s popularity could be attributed to recent job offerings out of Reno. Facilities in the city are offering noticeably high pay packages for both medical/surgical and telemetry contracts, according to StaffDNA listings. Meanwhile, Virginia has moved from its lofty spot at No. 7 down to No. 24, dropping 17 spots to the middle of the pack. It’s not unexpected to see this change as travelers move back north, but we expect some of that demand to return as Virginia is among the top five hottest travel destinations for summer 2018. Other popular summer vacation states like Hawaii and Colorado should also move up the ranks. May’s Top Markets Texas California Florida North Carolina New York Ohio Georgia Michigan Arizona Illinois South Carolina New Jersey Tennessee Missouri Philadelphia Alabama Colorado Mississippi Nevada Indiana Arkansas Kentucky Oregon Virginia Washington Hawaii Louisiana Oklahoma West Virginia Iowa Utah Connecticut District of Columbia Maryland Maine Montana New Hampshire New Mexico Wisconsin Delaware Kansas Minnesota South Dakota Massachusetts North Dakota Rhode Island Wyoming Idaho Nebraska Vermont Alaska Editor’s note: This list is created by analyzing the number of travel nurses applying for jobs in these individual states and Washington D.C. Is not necessarily an indicator of traveler interest in these states or of job volume. Application data comes from the StaffDNA jobs database.
Location & Legislation: Factors Impacting The Traveler Job Market (Part 1)
The term “hot market” isn’t just a corporate buzzword; it’s a battle cry for travel nurses and travel staffing agencies across the country. Nurses want to know where the jobs are and recruiters watch the market like hawks, hoping to place their nurses in the right place at the right time. For Oren Lavi, director of client advisory at LiquidAgents Healthcare, regularly updating the recruiting team is how the agency makes sure its nurses stay on top of a fast-changing travel nurse job market. “‘What’s going on in this territory?’ ‘Do you see any changes in this state?’ ‘What hospitals made acquisitions?’,” Lavi said. “They want to know all the details because they want to inform their nurses so that when they’re making their next step, it’s a logical step.” Smart travel nurses should be asking similar questions of their recruiters because there are many factors that can affect which markets are hot and when. Flying south for the winter Just like birds seek balmy temperatures during harsh winters, travelers and their patients tend to do the same. “There’s a definite seasonality to market shifts,” Lavi said. “You have Florida, Arizona and New Mexico where people from up north spend time in the south. If they get sick, it’s not at home but down in these states instead, so these hospitals see a boom in patient loads and need nurses to take care of them.” The problem is nurses want to go where it’s warm too, so while demand for them is high, so is the supply. That pushes pay down. So, while it may be more comfortable spending winters at a Florida beach, travelers who brave the cold can make great money in northern states like Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Hospitals in these states will often incentivize travelers to fill positions by paying more during colder months. Even with seasonal shifts, there are some states that stay “hot” year-round, like Texas and California, Lavi said. “With Texas being so big and the temperature so moderate, it will always have demand,” Lavi said. Affordable Care Act boom Lavi says there’s been no bigger boon to the market than the Affordable Care Act, specifically in 2015, the year after the tax mandate kicked in that required all U.S. citizens to buy health insurance or incur a penalty. The mandate, along with new access to tax credits for small businesses and federal subsidies for health coverage, caused a sizeable surge in insured Americans. “Everyone getting health insurance meant more people were actually going to see a physician when they needed to, which made demand even stronger,” Lavi said. “Patients benefited from getting the care they needed, hospitals benefited because they served more patients and travelers benefited because there was more opportunity out there.” Lavi expected the job market to drop at the start of this year after President Donald Trump signed the GOP’s tax reform bill into law in December of last year, which also repealed the health care coverage mandate. But so far demand has not dropped in 2018, Lavi said. “The territories I’m working right now are super hot,” Lavi said. “Travelers want to go there and we have more than enough positions for them. But if something like the Affordable Care Act (mandate) gets re-enacted, that could spur another market jump.” The nursing strike “vacuum effect” Hospital strikes are a fairly regular occurrence across the U.S. Nurses who feel they are overworked, underpaid or mistreated by management organize strikes to force hospitals into negotiations, leaving these facilities without necessary staff to take care of patients. It happens often enough that some staffing agencies specialize in placing nurses in strike areas. Hospitals will also offer significantly higher bill rates to quickly fill staff spots during a strike. While not all agencies necessarily fill strike positions, recruiters do still keep track of strikes because of the “vacuum effect” they can have on the market, Lavi said. “The strikes in Minnesota last year sucked up a lot of travel nurses…the number was in the thousands,” Lavi said. “That left a lot of other hospitals with unfulfilled needs. It was good for nurses who don’t want to work strikes because that meant less competition to get a job.” In Part Two, Oren talks about how the looming nursing shortage, hospital mergers and traveler goals also affect the market. Click here to read Part 2.
Market Data – Top States for January 2018
This list is created by analyzing the number of travel nurses applying for jobs in these individual states and Washington D.C. It is an indicator of traveler interest in these states and is not necessarily and indicator of job volume. Application data comes from the StaffDNA jobs database. Florida California Texas North Carolina Tennessee South Carolina Georgia New York Virginia Michigan Ohio Illinois Oregon Pennsylvania Alabama Arizona New Jersey Louisiana Mississippi Missouri Indiana Arkansas Nevada West Virginia Kentucky Oklahoma Colorado Washington Wisconsin Hawaii New Mexico Connecticut Massachusetts Maryland Kansas Minnesota Utah Idaho Maine Rhode Island Alaska Iowa New Hampshire South Dakota Wyoming Washington D.C North Dakota Vermont Delaware Montana Nebraska