Licensing with/after CA

Some agencies will pay for verification costs but remember it all comes out of the same pot. Such that you should ask for a bonus of the same amount when taking an assignment with an existing good license.

California is part of Nursys in that they will use it to verify other state licenses. Forget about them allowing verification of their own licenses anytime soon though Nursys.

There will only be a few scenarios where you will need to pay for a verification from California. The most common is when you apply to a state requiring all previously held licenses to be verified. But that is a big issue once it happens as it is not the $100 that's the problem, but the month to three months it could take for California to verify your license.

I believe NY is such a state. MA and NJ for sure. Fast way to check for all such states is PanTraveler's state BON reference. It will save you $100 and some time applying to NY now.

Most states just requre verifying your original state of licensure and any current license if your original license has lapsed. So the other time you may need a CA license verification is when it is the only one current license you hold.

Thanks NedRN! Definitely food for thought and will go ahead and start my NY app and looking through the PanTraveler info.

My original state of licensure is Illinois though have let it lapse (less than 5 years). If I go ahead and renew my IL license will that work for any new state applications that want all active if your original is lapsed? If that's so it would probably be cheapest to just keep my IL license up to date.

Well, it depends. I let most of my licenses lapse as it turns out to be cheaper to pay the late fee if I return more than two years later. It won't make a difference either way for verifying your original IL license. You are very unlikely to not hold a current license in another state so it should be fine to let it stay lapsed - your NY license will cover you.

Depending on your personal preferences, I'd recommend a MA license now too as they also require all licenses to be verified. I like MA because like the west coast, pay rates are good. Small state but east and west MA are like two different states.

NJ is also high pay but I've always avoided it. Bad BON policies. If your NJ license lapses and you come back in, you have to pay for the full lapsed period for a license you haven't used. Sucks. And they have high licensure costs.

MA is wonderful by comparison. I've gone into the Boston office three times now with a lapsed license and walked out a few minutes later with a renewal letter I could go to work with the same day.

I think you're right about not renewing my IL license. Illinois's website is such a chaotic mess and apparently Pantraveler has outdated info. I finally found the Administrative Code on Illinois's site (the only place I could find an actual answer), they're almost as bad as NJ now. To renew an expired in IL you have to pay $50 plus all lapsed renewal fees. My IL license expired in 2014 so that puts me at about $210 just to get it re-activated for a state I doubt I'll work in again (mainly because of the low nursing pay).

I actually love the idea of working in Massachusetts so think I might go for that too. So then I'll have FL, CA, NY, and MA. Debating NV as I know travel rates can be good there and long processing time. Would also think about OR and WA, though those both only take about a month to get licensed so not as worried to get those.

That's the first time I've heard that IL requires you to pay for all lapsed years to renew. I wonder if that is new? Updating the board resource is a huge job for PanTravelers and I believe they only update it fully every two years. As you have discovered, it can be really hard to decipher web sites and many states require a call (which can take many attempts over days to get through) to fill out all the information needed. However, it is mostly fees that change over time, many policies persist for years, like how many CEU's you need for initial or renewal, and which licenses you have to verify.

You might want to delay your CA trip until you have applied for these other licenses. If the stars align, you could have a CA temp in 4 days, and the permanent in a couple of weeks. So those other licenses will cost more, but just those who want all licenses verified, which are not so many. MA and NY I think on your list and I'm not positive about NY. But it will cost more if you miss a travel assignment so don't pinch pennies to save dollars.

You will note an interesting trend: it is harder to get licenses in states that pay well. This is in part to strong nurse unions in those states protecting their franchise. None of the strong union states are compact states, which tend to be largely low paying and non-unionized. I often wonder if travel nurses from compact states make less than do other travelers because they may take the easy route, avoid the licensure issues, and only travel to other compact states. You can get good paying contracts in compact states, but the overall trend is clear.

I've already booked my flight to Sacramento it's in 2 weeks, so the next 2 days I'm working on getting my applications in for the other states. You think that should still work for timing?

Also should I go ahead and initiate the Nursys verification for CA before traveling?

You know, the main reason for the visit to California is to Live Scan fingerprints done in state. Background checks going through the CA DOJ is the main obstacle to fast licensure. If you are not actually planning an assignment to California in the next two months, you can certainly slow things down. Don't opt for the temp (the sponsoring agency may insist though), and either don't do the license verification or initiate the sending of transcripts. Then you can honestly not mention CA as a state you've held a license in. But you don't really need to rush to do a bunch of other states either unless you are planning on working there in the next few months. Merely get licenses in the states that would otherwise need CA verification sent by snail mail - the states such as MA that require verification of all licenses ever held.

Well my goal is to be able to start looking at assignments by November so will still do everything I can to expedite the CA license. Might just have to bite the bullet on the CA license verification but maybe I'll get lucky :)

Thanks Wolf, yeah it was actually reading your post that first got me thinking about the CA license and verification consequences, however CA is my priority which is why I didn't want to save till last. That's why I'm hoping that applying to NY and MA now won't be an issue when I turn in my app in 2 weeks directly to CA BON. Other states I'm not as concerned about. If the job pays enough the $100 fee won't stop me. Spend some to make some :)