What happens if you don't complete a travel assignment

ArmaniX, MSN, APRN · Apr 20, 2015

I believe there are fines for cancelling your contract early.. I don't know if they take outside, uncontrollable, factors into consideration. Give it some time and I'm sure Ned will reply or someone with actual travel experience. (I've only done a lot of reading on travel nursing!)

NedRN · Apr 20, 2015

Most contracts have missed hour penalties for not completing contracted hours. The basis for penalties should be to recover actual costs, such as housing. If you take a housing stipend and arrange your own housing, penalties should be minimal to zero. The contracts are often boilerplate and you will likely have to work with your recruiter to remove penalty language. The hassle involved will vary with the recruiter and agency. Mind you, if you take your own housing, there will probably be a penalty involved for leaving early unless you are staying in ultra short term accommodations - you are just shifting who you owe the penalties to. It is not possible to remove all risks no matter how you live your life!

BigT · Apr 20, 2015

A traveler at an assignment I am currently on was fired by the hospital and she has to pay back over $5000 in fees and housing re-imbursements due to her being canceled due to her behavior (complaining about work conditions to her manager). Most contracts do not delineate between forced termination or involuntary leaving due to illness... you are a number and warm body, leaving an assignment is leaving an assignment and a contract is a contract. Be sure to read the contracts carefully.

HikingNinja, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN, NP · Apr 21, 2015

I thought once you had a fulltime position and made it past your 90 day probationary period the hospital had to allow you to take FMLA even if you did not get paid during that time due to no vacation/sick days? I'm probably wrong. I don't really know much about FMLA other than what I've heard, never had to take it myself. Can you consider agency or per diem work? I'm not sure if you need the benefits but if not working per diem or local temp agency may give you the flexibility you need for now. Does the town have an urgent are or quick care? They love ER nurses, maybe that could be an option too.

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Apr 21, 2015

From what I have heard, a worker cannot take FMLA until after the first year of employment. The maximum time on FMLA is either 3 or 4 months, I forget which, during which time your job is protected. You can exhaust sick time while you're on FMLA and then go unpaid until you return. Not sure if you can use accrued personal time as well. I have also heard -- and have seen people do this -- that if you return to work for a certain period and are out on FMLA again, the 3-4 month clock resets. I need to read up again on this law, as I am sketchy on details as you can see.

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perfexion, ASN, RN · Apr 24, 2015

I just broke a contract two weeks before completion due to injury/pregnancy complications. I was 6 months with back pain. So far ive incurred no penalties because they're still trying to decide if my injury was job related. I'm on disability right now. I pretty much burned my bridges with both the hospital and my agency. They don't even send me those generic job postings emails anymore. Oh well. I'm still pregnant and on bed rest and I'm taking off the rest of the year so I'll have to start from scratch finding a new agency next year. Hopefully I'm not blacklisted.

NedRN · Apr 24, 2015

Blacklisted? By whom?

trackhead, APRN · Apr 24, 2015

Hopefully I'm not blacklisted.

If you have a pulse, you potentially have a job in this industry, in my opinion.

perfexion, ASN, RN · Apr 29, 2015

I heard about a travel nurse who habitually broke her contract and now no one will hire her so I'm assuming there is a blacklist of some sort. A lot of the agencies are a part of parent companies.

NedRN · Apr 29, 2015

Blacklists are generally illegal (I know of only one exception and that is how the DFW Hospital Association arranged theirs and that primarily only affects Texas).

A do-not-hire inside of one company is legal. So agencies with many brands like Cross Country or American Mobile can certainly decline to hire you. Likewise a chain of hospitals like Kaiser can make you a do-not-hire. So can a vendor manager that places travelers at multiple hospitals. Those are not blacklists.

A bad reference accomplishes the same thing. If you use a hospital that terminated you as a reference, or the agency that handled that assignment, they can legally tell anyone that calls that you are a DNR. That is not a blacklist that is "pushed" to multiple other employers, nor does it require others to not hire you.

The deal with being a bad nurse is that you can usually continue to work. We've all seen the national news stories about patient killers who continue to work for years. There are ways around employment issues. For travelers, you simply switch agencies and don't put terminations on your work history. Unless you are unable to complete an assignment or obtain a good reference, incompetent nurses or those with personality disorders can continue on indefinitely.

If the problem is severe, you still agency shop until you find one that is lazy and doesn't check references. Or perhaps you fabricate references. Or just work strikes if there are enough of them to keep you employed. While that might get you by the reference and job history issues, even strike workers get terminated and there are not so many strike agencies. So the very worst nurses may eventually have to stop working as a nurse. Obviously if their license gets dinged, that may put a stop to a bad nurse.

But for a good nurse who gets terminated for some BS reason? You won't have a blacklist problem. And with 6,000 hospitals and 400 agencies, a DNR isn't going to slow you down.