contract language

Dont sign the contract until you understand what is implied in the contract.

Also, how do you know you're liable for 'eveything' if you can't understand your contract?

Hi Kaltia, No not too picky at all. I have learned over the years that contract lingo and verbiage is written and designed to cover the agencies' expenses/bases should something occur such as a cancellation of shift, or entire contract. This may be the facilities decision, unforeseen situations, or your decision to end contract for whatever the reason. A good reliable recruiter should walk you thru the clauses and verbiage, and answer any questions or concerns you have (especially so for a first-time traveler). More often than not, contracts contain rules/policies that favor travel nurses, i.e. how many times a facility can cancel you or what units and how often you will be floated during a 13 week contract. The contract language is pretty standard, and varies depending on where you are working, and your specialty-for example working in a California unionized facility/icu, er, or cvicu.

My advice is try to have your recruiter go over any terminology and/or contract language you feel is broad. Good Luck with your travels......

I'm particularly concerned about the language related to breaking the contract which involves paying back certain undisclosed costs to the company. They tell me it's situational. When I ask for examples and concrete numbers I can't get them. It's not that I have any reason to worry about needing the break the contract but I don't feel comfortable signing to pay for things that I don't know what they are or how much. I can't believe they don't have numbers on what the cost would be.

I aced the interview, I really like the sound of this facility but I feel really uncomfortable with the phraseology and they don't seem willing to rewrite it to be more specific.

i already had the recruiter read through it with me and most things they're willing to fix but this is the one issue, I'm really stuck on.

Congratulations on acing the interview. Many components are involved in travel contracts, and the agencies investment in you as their traveler. I look up the stipends using GSA.gov to see what an agency can give as the maximum stipend $$ for that location, and year. Your recruiter has a valid point being that it is situational based up each individual traveler, and their total compensation. Your recruiter should at least be willing to provide you with a "rough estimate" of penalty payments you could possibly incur should you break the contract.

Maybe if you added up all your hourly pay, plus weekly stipends, reimbursements, etc-then ask your recruiter what happens if the contract terminates at say week 6 (half-way point)--what dollar amounts will I be held responsible for paying back to agency? In other words create a hypothetical situation using your $$$compensation, then find out what amounts of your compensation/pay package you are responsible for in repayment.

At this point ask for what the undisclosed costs are, since they are not specifically stated in your contract.Your recruiter or the account manager at your agency should give you the details of the costs that are making you uncomfortable(by not knowing). IF YOU HAVE NOT SIGNED A CONTRACT YET-LET YOUR RECRUITER KNOW THAT YOU WILL SIGN CONTRACT AS SOON AS UNDISCLOSED COSTS ARE PUT IN WRITING IN YOUR CONTRACT TO BE SIGNED. That hopefully will result in more transparency of the figures you need to see. Honestly, I doubt that you will be given "concrete" or exact values-but you at least want to be informed of potential $$$range based on your contract pay/compensation with this agency. Good Luck.

I've never been asked to pay anything back for a facility cancelled contract. If you cancel for any reason there would probably be repucussions obviously. If I ask for specifics I always get them. If they don't I move on. Don't work with anyone who does that to you, it's used car salesman tactics and makes us the fool if we tolerate it.

Its unknown because they dont know them. When YOU cancel mid contract then there are leases broken, housing that has already been paid for, hours contracted for you to work, etc. All of the items have variables.

How much is housing? They dont know until they arrange it AFTER YOU SIGN THE CONTRACT. How much is remaining on the lease? They wont know until you break it.

How many hours are you shorting them from your contract? They dont know until you break the contract and have a certain number of hours remaining on contract.

Use some common sense and math to decypher the terminology. These are pretty basic contracts and very standard across most agencies.

Remember that you are a contract worker and they want to get paid based on the same contract you want to get paid on.

I'm particularly concerned about the language related to breaking the contract which involves paying back certain undisclosed costs to the company. They tell me it's situational. When I ask for examples and concrete numbers I can't get them. It's not that I have any reason to worry about needing the break the contract but I don't feel comfortable signing to pay for things that I don't know what they are or how much. I can't believe they don't have numbers on what the cost would be.

I aced the interview, I really like the sound of this facility but I feel really uncomfortable with the phraseology and they don't seem willing to rewrite it to be more specific.

i already had the recruiter read through it with me and most things they're willing to fix but this is the one issue, I'm really stuck on.

You are absolutely right to to require specific numbers in a contract. Missed hour specific penalties are the industry standard.

Here are the underlying details: Traveler compensation packages include both taxed hourly rates, and untaxed compensation usually based on weekly amounts. Miss time at work for whatever reason, you don't get those taxed hours. But you do continue to get the untaxed compensation.

Agencies get revenue for actual billable hours from hospital out of which they must meet all their expenses. You don't work, they don't get that hour of work. Yet they have paid you based on you working that hour of work so they need to "claw back" the percentage of those missed hours that are the untaxed compensation (or stipends more accurately - or housing value if provided by the agency instead of that portion of your stipend).

If you use PanTravelers Calculator, you will find that most assignments total pay is between $50 and $60 an hour. If, for example, you are being paid $20 hourly, that means you are getting $30 or more in stipends. If the missed hour penalties are fair and based on actual costs, you are not getting penalized for missing hours at all, just not getting paid for them. It is just math if they overpay you and claw some of it back.

There are many variations of how agencies pay travelers. Some, instead of a weekly or monthly stipend, may have an hourly stipend (up to the first 36 or 40 hours). Then missed hours subtract automatically from your pay without penalties needed.

There is also the possibility (rare) of a hospital contractual penalty for the agency if you cancel before or within a couple weeks of assignment start. Those should be revealed transparently in your contract as well. Very unfair if they are not because you cannot make a proper rewards versus risk assessment about an assignment prior to agreeing to taking it.

But bottom line is that you should not ever accept an assignment with unspecified and unlimited penalties in the contract. That puts you in a losing position in a legal battle. Some agencies may like to include "lost profits" or "loss of reputation" when they assess penalties. While that is unfair (they have to assume some business risk as well - not just hire anyone without any consequences to them), it is tough to fight.

Hard to do, but I would respectfully decline this assignment unless the agency "fixes" the contract. No! is the response if they ask if you don't trust them during that conversation.

You can attempt to salvage this assignment if you don't have other easy or fast options by calling the hospital and tell them that it turned out the agency contract was unacceptable, not because of compensation but because of unspecified performance penalties. They may allow you to switch to another one of their supplying agencies.

Mind you, the contract you didn't sign or the associated employee handbook may restrict you from switching agencies and the original agency may attempt to enforce that. Ignore any bluster or threats and simply stop talking to them. If they file a lawsuit (very unlikely), they will have the burden of proof and no signed contract.

I did end up declining the contract. So far no issues but it was Definetly a lesson in what to check for. I'm grateful it didn't go any farther before I realized the issue.