Licensure question

[taggart84]

Hi all, this is a basic question that I'm sure has been covered and may be a silly one. I am licensed in Ohio. I plan on having dual licensure when I make my permeant move to Florida. For nurses who frequently travel about the country, are you licensed in every state? If you desire a contract do you have time to acquire new licensure in that state?

[NedRN]

Licenses with every BON? The cost and administration would be prohibitive and it is not possible to work in more than say 4 states a year if you are doing 13 week contracts. Every state has a different time frame for licensure, from "walk-through" to the hassle of having to verify every license ever held, or as you are discovering with Florida, prerequisite CEUs and background checks.

Every traveler has a comfort zone in how they handle renewals or proactively getting licenses ahead of travel offers to be more marketable. Many states have very easy renewal of lapsed or expired licenses so I just let them lapse unless I know I will be traveling there soon. Lapsed fees are fairly trivial in most states (NJ being a huge exception). About half of the states are in a compact agreement whereby if you live in one of those states, you can legally work in the other member states without a new license.

[miam]

I'm lucky, I have a compact license but since you do not pick 3 or 4 states that seem to have nursing jobs that you are interested in and want to visit and appapply for license when you can afford it. It will get expensive fast.

[wanderlust99]

It can be a pain and quite costly. I currently have 4 licenses and am waiting on my 5th to come through but only b/c I plan to travel multiple states this year. Otherwise it's too expensive. You need to plan in advance b/c some states it takes a couple months for a license to come through. I will not keep all these active after this year, way too expensive.