Need advice about travel nursing!!

[kelkelCA]

Hello Everyone,

I'm seeking the advice of some experience travel nurses out there who can understand the predicament of a newbie to travel nursing. I moved to Texas to get my 2.5+ years of ICU experience after nursing school, and now I am looking at travel nursing assignments in California...Anyhoo... I am very confused by the whole "this amount is taxed" and "this amount is not taxed" idea, not to mention the almost "underhanded" ways that things have been explained to me. I got to the point of getting an interview scheduled after a few phone calls with one agency only to later realize that this particular company does not appear to pay for housing at all (i.e. the options I was given were: 1) take company-arranged housing in which case they will deduct housing expenses from my pay, or 2) pay for it myself)....which to me pretty much defeats one of the only ways travel nursing makes financial sense for me. Then when I inquired about whether they paid overtime for anything over 8 hours (standard in Cali) I was given some explanation about "tax advantage" that I didn't have the tools to understand at the time.

So to make a long story short, I am very confused about what is generally considered "good" or "normal" in the travel nursing arena. Am I being realistic to expect that housing should NOT come from my money (unless it is a housing stipend)? What about health insurance? Do most people get their own, or do they get the company provided insurance? (Assuming that their company provides it at all)...

So many questions!!!! Advice is welcome!!

[I<3Endo]

Those are good questions. The housing confuses me a bit, too. I understand getting a stipend & finding your own housing (that seems like what most of the travelers do). But "providing housing" & then taking the cost out of your paycheck really throws me! It seems like that should just be money you never see either way.....

[NedRN]

I'd recommend doing some reading on PanTravelers. It is a non-profit group where you can read unbiased articles about everything travel related for a free membership. Learning about tax homes before you start traveling can save you from making costly errors. TravelTax is another unbiased site (well not completely, he would like you to use him for your tax returns) that is focused just on tax issues for travelers. Other sites that are advertising supported but still provide useful information include Gypsy Nurse and Highway Hypodermics.

In brief though, travel compensation is very different than staff pay. For a starter every thing comes from an all inclusive hourly bill rate for each hour you work. So money available to pay you is limited to that amount. So housing does come out of your money! Compensation usually comes in the form of an hourly rate (often rather low), provided housing (or a housing stipend), "per diem" (called meals and incidentals by the IRS), travel pay, health insurance, and license reimbursement. Offers can look rather complex but there is a calculator on PanTravelers that allows you to boil these offers down for better understanding and the ability to compare offers from different agencies (they all quote very differently). Tax advantage simply means only the hourly portion of your compensation is taxed (plus bonuses if any) and all the other items are tax free if you have a tax home. That is worth about $10,000 a year in extra net pay but has to be balanced against the real cost of maintaining a tax home.

California overtime is also a complex subject and not uniform (not "standard"!) from hospital to hospital and agency to agency. There is an article on that alone on PanTravelers (and the calculator includes overtime after 8 if your offer includes it). It includes a discussion of blended rates that some agencies use to either help "simplify" the quote (usually making it even more opaque), or more often to make it look better.

The best indicator of successful travel is your communication with your recruiter(s). That is way more important than the agency brand. Talk to lots of them and pick the best five to work further with. You want ones that can communicate all these concepts to you and that appear to be honest and trustworthy. Talking to lots of recruiters is a lot of work, but has a side advantage of helping you understand the travel industry. Don't worry too much about money for your first assignment, focus instead on finding a good fit that you can complete successfully, not a well paying hell hole that will turn you off forever on travel. Then you will be more competitive for better assignments and will know your skills, abilities, and preferences much better than you do now.

Good luck!