Pay rate on contract different than offered

travelsohard · Jun 25, 2014

One shift per week is absolutely ridiculous. The most I've ever had in a contract is 36 hours PER ASSIGNMENT total. If the hospital cancels you, you shouldn't be penalized. If you call off, that's another story. I'd renegotiate that or change agencies.

As for the stipend, that is completely dishonest. The entire things seems fishy to me and I would never sign anything like that.

NedRN · Jun 25, 2014

Let's take an extreme example, you work no billable shifts at all. Yet the agency is supposed to pay a housing stipend, per diem, and travel. So the missed hour penalty is a way to "claw back" those expenses for which the agency is not paid. In the old days, it was more common to pay housing and per diem on a worked hour basis, so if you don't work, you don't get paid. Lots easier to understand, but IRS rules no longer allow this. The missed hour penalty should ideally exactly match those agency expenses and if you add up your housing, per diem, and travel for the entire assignment and divide by the hours contracted, it should be close. And yes, it could be higher than your base hourly pay.

Is this a Banner hospital by any chance? They have a long standing contractual policy of being able to call off travelers one shift per pay period without penalty. This was more tolerable when pay periods were two weeks. Now that has morphed into one week pay periods and now you could make only two thirds of what you were expecting. That is overall, not just your base hourly, but also your housing and per diem as described above.

So you have this clear contractual risk and have to determine whether the contract is worth accepting or not. You need more information, so you have to ask your agency about the call off rate for that hospital and unit. If you had known about policy ahead of time, you would have also asked the interviewing manager about call off rates.

Finally the termination clause: I wouldn't call it normal, but it is all too common and entirely unfair. Technically, it puts you on the hook for missed hour penalties for the entire contract when it was in no way your fault when you get terminated for low census (for example). Completely one sided protecting the agency from any harm. Personally, I wouldn't sign such a contract but most contracts finish without issue. Talk to the agency about it. They will no doubt say that they have never done that nor would they consider it, but then why not put it in the contract? Why must the traveler carry all the risk for a failed assignment?

You haven't actually agreed to this assignment yet. Yes, you made a verbal acceptance (which is a tactical mistake) but that is predicated on getting a contract without undiscussed gotchas. No meeting of the minds that is required for a valid contract. You were told that you would be paid for 36 hours a week, this is clearly not reflected in the contract, nor is the agreed stipend amount. On your side, you might not be able to perform because of (for example) not having the state license on time. Both of these are performance issues negating any prior acceptance by either party.