Tag: travel nurse agency

The Benefits of Working as a Travel Healthcare Provider

Money makes the world go around. No doubt. Those incredible crisis pay packages were something we never imagined would happen. But one thing about travel healthcare is to always expect the unexpected. That is another reason so many high-quality professionals seek travel assignments to avoid the same routine day in and day out. Same people, same providers, same environment. Why not change your scenery every 8-12 weeks?

While those historic pay packages are probably gone, the compensation for a travel healthcare provider usually far outweighs the pay for a staff healthcare person. Along with that pay are the perks that come in so much higher on the list of top qualities veteran healthcare travelers look for in a company.

To be a successful healthcare traveler, you must ensure you work for a financially healthy travel agency. A company that has longevity in the industry and a successful track record of paying their employees. Additionally, what do the agencies’ clients say about them?

    • Is direct deposit available?
    • How simple is the payroll system? Is there a consistent pay schedule?
    • Are compensation packages outlined in a contract?
    • Does the agency have long-term established relationships with hospitals in the State you wish to work in?

Once you have ensured the travel agency is a quality reputable business, what about other perks the company offers?

      • What type of health insurance plan do they offer?
      • Is there dental insurance?
      • Vision options, short term disability, Life Insurance?
      • Is there a retirement savings plan?
      • Is there a continual education reimbursement?
      • Is there a new employee orientation process that outlines the company’s expectations, policies, and procedures?

Finally, how streamlined is the process from application to employment offer? Having a successful personal recruiter can make or break your experience and longevity in this industry that has been around over forty years.

      • Is your recruiter available and transparent?
      • Is the Agency available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is there an on-call team available?
      • Are you able to express your goals and feel heard about those expectations?
      • How streamlined is the hiring process and onboarding process?
      • Most importantly, are you able to switch recruiters and remain in the same organization if there is not a connection between the two of you?

Travel Healthcare has been around for decades and is clearly here to stay for the foreseeable future. One year minimum of experience can potentially get you started on a twenty-plus-year career. You can stay close to home or travel as far as the roads or airlines can take you.

The personal and professional growth you can experience and gain from this industry is a rare opportunity, as not too many careers have such experiences to offer. Whether you travel for one or two contracts a year or year after year, the flexibility the industry has to offer is hands down second to none.

Our Team is Walking the WALK

Since our inception in 1994, our mission has never changed: to provide only the best in patient care. How do we know if our office team and our travel team are walking the walk?

Weekly, we have nurses that are achieving not only DAISY nominations, but also receiving DAISY Awards. The Daisy was somewhat elusive to travelers, however, we see our team acquiring these awards every week! The end of contract evaluations returned from our clients repeatedly show ABOVE average and/or EXCEEDS Expectations.

Many contain additional remarks on the quality, dependability, attitude and respect the hospital has for our nurse.  These comments are becoming more and more frequent which not only shows the strength of our travel team but also the hiring practices utilized by our recruiters to obtain “only the best.”

Of course, when a nurse’s contract is repeatedly extended (in many cases year after year), you know their performance is exceptional!

We have clients that rely solely on our company to provide the staffing they need. They love the ability to pick up the phone anytime – day or night, weekday or weekend – and know they will be able to speak to a person at our company.

We recently helped a client open a new unit. They called to thank us for making that opening even more successful than they had anticipated.  With the team we supplied them, they were able to open at full patient capacity.

Fidelity On Call has few openings in the home office and these usually occur because the company is growing and we need an additional team member. We have successfully hired in all departments this year.

With that said, we have office team members who have been with our company over a decade and a few over two decades. That says a lot.

Retention is important to our company. No employee should feel like they are just a number. Every person is valued. As we hire, we understand travelers come and go for a variety of reasons. But, we are always SOOO happy when they decide to come back – they choose us! Our recruiters and our entire company work very hard to ensure our travel team retention is just as high as our internal staff retention.

What Fidelity On Call knows for sure is a company is only as good as the people they employ. We could not be happier with that success. We strive to hire the best and treat our team the best.

Clearly our clients are reaping the rewards and we appreciate them sharing feedback with us. We look forward to continuing on our mission to hire only the best!

Travel Nurse vs Staff Nurse

Comparing a travel nurse to a staff nurse is really like comparing an apple to an orange. Both are fruit, both are good for your health, but each still has differences.

TRAVEL NURSES:

✔ Enjoy the change in environment (typical change in assignments every 13 weeks; you may be offered to extend, or you can move onto the next location)
✔ Experienced in their nursing skills (travel nurses are not new graduates)
✔Adaptable (outside of showing a travel nurse the charting system and the lay of the land, travel nurses receive little orientation)
✔Exceptional interpersonal skills
✔Above average attendance records
✔Financially savvy to save for their own PTO/Vacation time and live a more flexible lifestyle
✔Flexible (you can choose the shifts you wish to work and the time off you want to take off)
✔Enjoys the perks of travel pay (competitive wages, tax free allowances)

STAFF NURSES:

✔Prefer to see the same nurses, techs, and providers day in and day (the only change is the patient)
✔Enjoys team meetings, unit committees
✔Likes a short or familiar commute to work
✔Typically receive lower pay but earn paid time off
✔Seniority matters

It is important when determining what is right for you, to always ensure you are choosing the right travel nurse agency to support you and/or the hospital that aligns with your mission in healthcare. Both offer several opportunities! Just remember you are never locked into one or the other. You have a career that has flexibility and opportunities.

We Believe in You

When we say we’ve got your back… WE TRULY have got your back.

I think we can all agree, that shifting the blame happens in all lines of work.  A lot of people have a hard time taking responsibility for their own mistakes, errors, or shortcomings. It takes an emotionally intelligent person to be able to say, “Hey I was wrong. That was my error. Perhaps I am the problem in this situation.” When emotional intelligence is lacking, shifting the blame happens. This happens in travel nursing also. In these crazy times it does seem to occur a little more often than we have seen in the past, however we react the same as we always have.

For example, something is happening on the unit you are working on, and you are getting the blame.  When that complaint comes to the office, we have a process and we do not veer from that process.

Complaint>Investigation>Resolution

Please know that we pride ourselves in the time and effort spent in every employee we hire. Something you may not know is we do not hire everyone that applies. We are very selective in our hiring process to ensure we find the right quality candidates who will honor our mission.  We also want to be a good employer match for those we hire. We believe in you and that is why we make the offer of employment to you. With that said, sometimes there is a complaint or a concern.

If there is a clinical concern:

Any clinical concerns are immediately reported to our Nurse Manager. Whether there is a medication error, charting error etc. the nurse manager is going to ask questions and investigate the documentation that may be provided. The nurse manager will reach out to the team member and ask questions. After investigating all sides of the situation, a resolution is then determined.

If there is a professional/personal issue:

Any professional/personal issues will be reported to your recruiter. When this happens, the following is done:

The recruiter is going to ask questions from the client regarding the complaint. The recruiter is going to reach out to you to share the concern/complaint and hear what you have to say about it. That recruiter will reach out to others to ask questions, if need be, investigate and get all sides of the story. A resolution is then determined and made.

In short, we believe in you unless proven otherwise

What’s Fair Got to Do With It?

I am willing to bet that you think like me on at least one thing. And, that thing is “life should be fair.” I remember being a child and thinking for the first time “that’s not fair.” For some reason, the idea that everything in life should be fair was planted in me at a very, very early age. What about you?

Fast forward to where we are today and there are still things that, we believe, can be determined in the spirit of fairness.

Major ones for our company are how we treat our customers and how we treat our team members. We want to treat everybody fairly; but, over the past two years, there are aspects of our business that have not been fair.

One very major area for our customers came with the advent of “crisis rates.” Many articles have been written about crisis rates. Recently, a group of U.S. Senators and Representatives asked for an investigation into allegations of overpricing by nurse staffing agencies during the pandemic. Hospitals nationwide have spoken out about the “unfairness” of the rates charged, the inability to compete with pay packages and the loss of their staff over the past two years.

Yet another example of what has happened involves a lawsuit between a hospital chain and a staffing agency as they sued one another over staffing issues. The hospital refused to pay their $40 million bill (wow!) because the rates were illegally inflated and asked the judge to keep the agency from pulling staff from its hospitals. The agency contended it couldn’t pay its bills until the hospital paid them.

As Fidelity On Call has watched what has happened with billing rates and pay rates, we have spoken many times about the word “fair.” We have counseled several of our customers to not increase their rates. They thought if they increased their rates, they would attract more nurses to work in their hospitals. But, when rates increase in one place, the next one just follows and we are on a wheel that never stops turning. Recently, while on a call with a vendor management company and their contracted hospital, we advised the same thing. The hospital thanked us.

We have been deeply concerned with what we have seen regarding rate increases in our industry. We have also alerted our nurses that what went up will come down. Or, at least, that is what we perceive will happen. And, we want our team members prepared.

Our recruiters are the best. They have never deviated from our mission for the best of patient care; however, hospitals are reporting that nurses (not from us – but other companies) don’t care about their patients. They are there only for the money. Once again, everybody needs to be fairly compensated, but when we reach a point where it is all about the money, something has gone terribly wrong.

As we move forward we will continue to work hard to make sure the scale of fairness is even on both sides. That means we will provide the best of care and be fair to both our hospitals and our great team of nurses.