Will travel nursing ever be done away with?

oramar · Nov 24, 2003

I don't really know anything for sure. I have worked in business long enough to notice trends. Travel nursing will be around for a long time and that includes agency nursing as well.. However, for time to time the need for them drops off and it gets hard to get an assignment. In those times agency nurses get called off a great deal. Around here this condition is currently being artificially created by several big institutions squeezing staffing and banning use of travelers and agency. The big mistake they have made in the past is that they abuse the heck out of there staff while at the same time trying to cut back on travelers and agency. This practice very quickly causes a large turn over in regular staff and eventually they have to go back to bringing in outside help.

rncopper · Nov 24, 2003

I do not think that travel nursing will ever disappear! There are some companies out there (some as different names now) that have been around for over 25 years!

Facilites ALWAYS will send down the edict: NO MORE TRAVELERS! Ya, right! That lasts for a while, but then either their staff won't work OT or they have had to close down floors, etc. They almost ALL come back to using travelers.

Nursing needs seems to be cyclic. When I graduated in 1993, there was a nursing "glut". It was ver difficult to get a job in the town that I was living in. Luckily, I did.

I think we are coming out of a cyclic time with travelers. Positions were a little tight there for a while (around a year) but positions are popping up! Facilites, for the most part, when, after they go on a hiring spree - and find out they can't either wait for their own staff to get trained OR do not get the new hires they want - come back to travelers.

Traveler pay is decreasing, though. Some of the really big bucks are getting harder and harder to find. I am not saying that they are not out there, though.

Yes, we do make more than regular staff (that is actual wages). Sometimes not much, but then we get little to no orientation, but people seem to forget that the facility does not pay the "bennies" for the traveler: the total compensation package for staff is just slight under what is paid to the traverler in actual wages.

(I don't think I am explaining that well enough! Haven't had my am coffee!!)

So, anyway, no I don't think travelers will disappear! Thank goodness because I NEVER want to be a staff nurse again!!!

:roll :roll

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Nov 24, 2003

Some places will always need travelers. In areas of the country, where there is a seasonal change in population (Florida), they need to import workers for brief periods of time to cover the crundh.

Geeg · Nov 25, 2003

It will be done away with when there is no longer any demand. I see hospital mergers as dangerous to the demand. Once, one system is allowed to buy all of the hospitals in a town, it sets salary limits and diminishes the travel co profits, which decreases travel nurse salaries and drives nurses back hospital employment. Once, the hospital has all of the travel RN's back in their employ then, they drop salaries at the hospital.

LadyNASDAQ · Nov 28, 2003

The travel nursing industry is having problems right now. Mainly, pay is being lowered and now staff and per diem are looking more attractive.

Remember, traveling is a personal sacrifice. You leave your family and life behind and work with your years of knowledge and have to accept many things that a staff nurse does not. You are a fill in and many hospitals do not regard your requests very often. If you are ok with that, you are cut out to do this.

If you want certain Holidays off, no guarantees that this will happen so you have to be very flexible. Also, you are a guest in the hospital and have to walk away from things that are very hot and political.

The biggest problem right now is that the salaries are being lowered by hospitals and the staff pay in many places is increasing to retain and attract us to their facilities.

I love the idea of freedom in terms of traveling, trust me but the hospitals are not paying as much to the travel companies and the problem is that they are not willing to give up their piece of the pie to make up and negotiate like they used to.

You have to balance what your bottom line is. For me, I will not work for less than $30/hr with free deluxe housing and day one insurance to get me in my car and take that assignment and I always ask for a 26 week one. For others, they may see it differently.

When you take an assignment, it is a personal sacrifice. Your name on paper guaranteeing that you will fulfill a 13 week committment where you may not necessarily work the way you want to work and may work many days in a row before you are off or may have to work may or all the Holidays if your contract doesn't specify.

The hospitals feel that you are there to help and fill in . Be aware of this. I have worked 4 12-hr. shifts in a row, off 1 day and then had to work another 2 12-hr shifts before I was off. It was a killer. I questioned it and could not get out of it. I was going to bed by 9 pm every night and took good care of myself.

My laundry was always done asap. My uniforms were all done asap and I would lay out a few at a time so that I had organization as best as possible. Lots of frozen dinners and bagged salads in the fridge and fresh fruit. Buy a gallon of milk so you don't have to run to the food store, etc., etc.

Brownms46 · Nov 29, 2003

Originally posted by rncopper
I do not think that travel nursing will ever disappear! There are some companies out there (some as different names now) that have been around for over 25 years!

Facilites ALWAYS will send down the edict: NO MORE TRAVELERS! Ya, right! That lasts for a while, but then either their staff won't work OT or they have had to close down floors, etc. They almost ALL come back to using travelers.

Nursing needs seems to be cyclic. When I graduated in 1993, there was a nursing "glut". It was ver difficult to get a job in the town that I was living in. Luckily, I did.

I think we are coming out of a cyclic time with travelers. Positions were a little tight there for a while (around a year) but positions are popping up! Facilites, for the most part, when, after they go on a hiring spree - and find out they can't either wait for their own staff to get trained OR do not get the new hires they want - come back to travelers.

Traveler pay is decreasing, though. Some of the really big bucks are getting harder and harder to find. I am not saying that they are not out there, though.

Yes, we do make more than regular staff (that is actual wages). Sometimes not much, but then we get little to no orientation, but people seem to forget that the facility does not pay the "bennies" for the traveler: the total compensation package for staff is just slight under what is paid to the traverler in actual wages.

(I don't think I am explaining that well enough! Haven't had my am coffee!!)

So, anyway, no I don't think travelers will disappear! Thank goodness because I NEVER want to be a staff nurse again!!!

:roll :roll

I agree that Travel nursing, nor agency per diem won't be going anywhere! Although there isn't a "shortage" now, there will be a great shortage soon! When the "baby boomers",retire, you will see a need like no other! There aren't enough grads now, nor will there be enough, even if every grad in school now graduated remained a nurse, AND remained in the hospital!

When I was in school in 1979, a shortage was forcasted, and that even if they started then, they wouldn't have enough nurses!

You have to think about the fact, that nurses quit working as nurses, nurses go to other non-pt areas of the heatlh field, nurses become stay at home moms, nurses go into business for themselves, become recruiters, pass away, lose their license, become disabled....etc..etc.! There is NO way, hospitals will EVER be able to survive without agency nurses!

I have been an agency nurse for very close to 23yrs, and a traveler for 11yrs almost 12! I have seen many, many changes, but none of it has ever fazed me! I know that at certain times of the year, depending on where I am, the work will fall off, and at others, I wish I was four people. I have learned to take advantage of those times, if I can.

I have went from making $7-9/hr to making 27-30/hr as per diem, and from $14.hr as travel to $28/hr plus housing, travel and bennie as travel. After making this kind of money, there is no way I would go back to working staff, unless the same kind of dollars, and THIS time I would get it in writing!

There are too many students, and new grads just itching to get into travel or agency, and have no intentions of staying staff! I too have seen hospitals who have tried to get rid of travelers, and agency, only to change their tune, even before the words were complety out of their mouths! In I have seen them change their minds in the same day!

One hospital stated that as of Aug 31, of 1997, they wouldn't use any more agency! That hospital used over 150 travelers at the time, and God only knows how many per diem agency! Their thinking was, that many of the agency working there, had been coming to that hospital as agency for years! Therefore they must really like it there, so if we don't use agency, they will be forced to come on as staff!..:chuckle Smart huh?? NOT!

Not only did they lose the agency nurses, they lost their staff too!!! They're staff saw the writing on the wall, as NO agency, meant the hospital would utilize their MOT!!! By the time the hospital looked again, they had lost soooo many staff nurses, they had to ask the same agency nurses, who they told they would be canceling their contracts to stay!!!! In fact two hospitals in this same area tried this, and both had to do a quick about face!! And guess what??? They're still using travelers and agency!

So in answer to your question ..NO WAY!