Specialty pay

Editorial Team / Admin · Nov 25, 2015

Some facilities may offer differentials for certain areas. Not going to be anything across the board but very facility dependent.

However, as a CVOR nurse, I make on average $20,000/year above my base salary. It comes at a cost- I take call 32-100 hours/week (depending on if I'm covering the weekend), and on many of those days end up staying late to finish cases as there isn't a second shift CVOR team. We also get called in at all hours of the day/night for emergencies and chest traumas. When on call, I am very limited in where I can go and what I can do as I must be in the OR within 30 minutes of getting a phone call. So, yes, there are specialties, especially those that require a lot of on call hours in addition to full time hours, where more money is made- but there is a bigger time commitment that goes along with it.

BeachsideRN, ASN · Nov 25, 2015

Thank you!

BeachsideRN, ASN · Nov 26, 2015

Some facilities may offer differentials for certain areas. Not going to be anything across the board but very facility dependent.
However, as a CVOR nurse, I make on average $20,000/year above my base salary. It comes at a cost- I take call 32-100 hours/week (depending on if I'm covering the weekend), and on many of those days end up staying late to finish cases as there isn't a second shift CVOR team. We also get called in at all hours of the day/night for emergencies and chest traumas. When on call, I am very limited in where I can go and what I can do as I must be in the OR within 30 minutes of getting a phone call. So, yes, there are specialties, especially those that require a lot of on call hours in addition to full time hours, where more money is made- but there is a bigger time commitment that goes along with it.

Another question as far as advanced practice roles, is clinical nurse educator lucrative? And how does it compare to FNP in terms of salary.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Nov 26, 2015

My specialty is physical rehabilitation, which is not the most appealing or sexy area to work. No one has childhood dreams of working in rehab.

I receive an additional $2,000 annual pay increase for possessing my CRRN certification. In addition, I received a $1,000 bonus when I first earned the certification. Also, there's no shortage of hours to be worked in rehab since nurses generally consider it an undesirable specialty.

calivianya, BSN, RN · Nov 26, 2015

My first job had a differential for critical care - it was $5/hr, and it conveniently went away a month before I started. Unfortunate stuff.

At some hospitals, you may see a differential for whatever areas have the most need.

Luckyyou, BSN, RN · Nov 26, 2015

I make an extra $3/hr for any shift I run an ECMO pump, or half of that if I share the shift with another ECMO specialist. Don't spend it all at once!

pixiestudent2 · Nov 26, 2015

I'm an OR nurse... I'll get a 10% raise after I do a certain number of transplant cases... And another 10% raise if I take care of a certain amount of trauma patients.

FurBabyMom, MSN, RN · Nov 26, 2015

I'm in the OR too. I'm in a facility where we have a table of minimum, median and max salaries for all job classes are published. Our OR nurses (Clinical Nurse I to Clinical Nurse IV) all make more than all other Clinical Nurses (ED, ICUs, peds, floor, clinic, etc). This is true whether we work in OR at the outpatient surgery center, the community hospital setting or the Level I trauma center. OR nurses in the trauma center make more than any of our other OR nurses - differential for being a Level I trauma center and not knowing what will come through the door.

We also get paid to take call, and overtime fairly frequently for being on call. We get shift differential like all other areas, and are more likely to accrue time on those shifts than others who don't rotate shifts because we get held over (no relief) or called in. I literally get paid to sit around and do nothing (at my house, out to dinner, at the mall, whatever), while I'm on call. I can stay home, get paid 10% of my hourly rate to clean my house. I do have to be within a 40 minute response time to work. And sometimes it means I might have to leave things I want to be at or do to go back to or in to work.

With the convenient little table we have for salaries - we can look at what the jump would be (minimum) to go to an APRN role. As a CNIII in the OR (main/trauma center), I make around $10K less annually than the starting for NPs. Which is not worth the cost I would incur to get my graduate degree and practice as an NP (part of why I'm not looking at the NP route, the other part being that I don't want to do the NP thing). Plus, I'm likely to make half or all of that $10K in overtime, call in, etc over the course of the year (hourly rate is the only thing considered in then table, not call pay, not overtime).

Wrench Party · Nov 27, 2015

Depends on where you work and experience level. I took after hours phone triage at my last job (outpatient) and it payed fairly well ($270/week). I just picked up a per diem position that pays more $$ than my full time gig in lieu of benefits, and working there 1x/week will net me an extra $1500-2000/month. :)

applesxoranges, BSN, RN · Nov 27, 2015

Sometimes you can get paid more if you travel. PICC contracted nurses can earn quite a bit.

BeachsideRN, ASN · Nov 27, 2015

Depends on where you work and experience level. I took after hours phone triage at my last job (outpatient) and it payed fairly well ($270/week). I just picked up a per diem position that pays more $$ than my full time gig in lieu of benefits, and working there 1x/week will net me an extra $1500-2000/month. :)

Thanks. This is great information. I will be graduating in 1 year. I love nursing, don't get me wrong, but it is q second career and I am looking to "max out" my earning potential to the best of my ability. I have an MPH and years of research behind me. I also don't need benefits, thanks to my husbands job. My goals are to pay off debt from my Mph as quickly as possible. (Most expensive piece of paper I've ever seen!). I am looking at FNP in the future but really clinical nurse education/ staff development is really pulling at me. One of the reasons I chose nursing is endless opportunity and learning