American Mobile

trackhead, APRN · Mar 7, 2014

Do some searches, there are tons of threads already discussing this.

I did one contract with them, no issues, take home pay was about $450/mos less than my preferred company. I'd work with them again, if needed. You'll get plenty of negative replies too.

If you get a bad vibe, go with someone else, it's as easy as that.

rn_nxt_dr · Mar 8, 2014

I worked for them for until I left them recently.

Do not at any circumstances just accept whatever they want to offer you, juggle 4-5 recruiters to get the best place where you want to be and not settle.

They have on the contract MISSED SHIFT that you have to pay them $ 18/hr that at anytime you did not work those hours whether your fault or no fault, they get paid first and whatever difference in base rate is yours. Even when you get sick. Be aware.

When a company is more concerned about financial losses than their employees, then it's not the right place to be.

NedRN · Mar 8, 2014

You may well have a legitimate beef, although it is certainly not the agency's fault that you did not read the contract. What is clear to me is that you are misunderstanding how travel nursing is a very different industry than most employers. Traditional employers do not have a daily cost of employment when employees do not work. Travel companies do not work off of productivity, but hours worked. They get an all inclusive bill rate from the hospital to pay for all costs: their cost of doing business such as recruiter pay and office rent and marketing; your compensation; housing, per diems, and travel. If you miss hours, they get no income but the costs of housing and per diems continue. That is what the missed hour penalties cover. If you miss every hour in the contract, would it be fair for you to get three months housing and meals paid?

The revenue source in contract labor does encourage a focus on hours billed and costs of missing hours. That is the nature of the business. If you want more stability, a benefited staff job may be better for you. It generally comes at the cost of a lower hourly to pay for those benefits, but that is a tradeoff that most workers prefer. Ultimately though, no employer is going to pay for your mortgage if you don't work, it is just a less direct connection than a travel company who is paying directly for your housing.

If you want to continue as a traveler and minimize the trade offs, there are a number of things you can do. First is read the contract before you sign it and negotiate the details. You will find that smaller agencies are more willing and flexible than the very large agencies. You do want a missed hour penalty rather than an open ended penalty statement, but you want it based on actual costs of missed hours. $18 is probably too high depending on where you are working. You will have to do some math. If your housing stipend or rent plus your per diem add up to say $3,000 a month, and you are working 40 hours or 520 hours per 3 months, divide $9,000 by 520 and you get about $9 an hour. I would not accept a higher penalty amount than that and certainly not one covering ambiguous "missed profits".

You can also negotiate a fair make-up hour policy where any missed hour penalties are refunded at the end of a contract if have worked extra hours. Because of the way some facility contracts are worded, overtime hours may not be counted the same way as regular hours (which can often be hard to make up without overtime), but certainly you can negotiate a ratio.

Love1another · Mar 11, 2014

I worked with AMN on 2 different assignments and would not recommend them to anyone. As others said, be sure you read over your contract carefully- what they stated the hourly pay would be did not match my contract so they had to redo it. They pay less than other companies- I found that out the unfortunate way by asking other travelers where I was how much they were making. Lastly, from my experience, they aren't honest. AMN offered me a job at a location where the hospital was offering a completetion bonus which I was aware from the 3 other companies I'm in contact with. AMN called and offered me the same job but did NOT tell me about the bonus and the offered hourly pay was less than what their website posted. Overall, your a number and they just want to make money off of you.

NedRN · Mar 11, 2014

Always check your contract carefully for inclusion of everything the recruiter and the manager promised. Such errors, on purpose or not, happen with every agency.

Completion bonuses are a tricky thing. Very few of them these days are pass through hospital bonuses. I'd point out that AM may not have been included on a pass through bonus, even if there was one. Ever notice how Walmart may not have the low price on Ben and Jerry's that all the other supermarkets have during an otherwise ubiquitous sale? Different supplier agreement is the story.

While I'm not sure that is the story, AM would not be able to keep a pass through completion bonus for themselves, it would be a breach of contract with the hospital. They would be more likely to reduce your hourly a like amount and pitch the completion bonus as the reason for the low pay if they were interested in cheating you. Generally, large billion dollar companies do not micromanage profits at that level although it does seem to happen with financial companies, or Medicare fraud (think HCA). Individual recruiters cannot profit personally from increased profits from one assignment that might encourage that abuse the way financial traders can be tied directly to trades.

Whatever the underlying truth, AM shot themselves in the foot with you and lost your valuable services worth around $20,000 in gross profits to the annually. Not smart business.