Travel nursing and travel dialysis healthcare positions have perks and benefits that far exceed that of staff positions. Hospital and dialysis facilities across the globe ensure that travel healthcare nurses and dialysis technicians are well compensated for lending their talent to quickly fill temporary staffing gaps and expeditiously having to relocate often.
As a new or a highly experienced travel healthcare professional, understanding the benefits and perks to travel nursing/dialysis travel work will help you weigh the pros and cons of starting or continuing with such an exciting journey. Traveling as a healthcare professional is a way to be savvier and less overwhelmed in your career discipline, helping you to enjoy your career more and open your imagination to where your career path can go, and it’s actually really easy to do.
Call one of our qualified recruiters at 832-509-1517 for the latest job listings. We offer many jobs that are not posted online, we receive openings often, and we are always actively pursuing new, exciting, and lucrative opportunities for our healthcare professionals. Click here to get on our email list and be the first to be informed of new openings and opportunities.
Read on if travel has been on your mind lately but maybe you don’t have the time or money to take a break from life right now – this post is a perfect depiction of how you can afford to travel, get paid more to do what you’re already doing and begin to love your job again.
1) Take Your Pick of Well-Paid Employment Opportunities Across the Nation
If there was ever a customizable career path where you can hand pick your location/city, pay, benefits, days off and length of stay, neighborhood, pretty much everything about your life in a given moment, travel nursing/travel dialysis healthcare work is the ideal career path!
Variety is the oyster of life, as the old saying goes. Traveling in your profession gives you so much variety. If you are the type of person that doesn’t like to be “pigeon held” into anything, having choice and flexibility is the key to keeping you happy and fulfilled in your career choice.
The #1 perk of travel nursing/technician is the ability to hand pick a well-paid employment opportunity. There are a variety of choices when it comes to dialysis travel work, but I would say that most look at pay first, location second and work their way down the list of “must haves” after that. The ability to get more pay or more days off is the beauty and uniqueness of travel nursing.
As a traveling dialysis technician, social worker, renal dietician, or travel nurse you can handpick what you want, so ask your recruiter what their highest paying assignment availabilities are. Let them know that money and/or location are your top motivators, and that you are not interested in assignments that pay less than certain amounts. Also, if you are not willing to go to certain states or geographical areas let them know that as well. A good recruiter is here to help you with your needs.
2) Travel Nurse Pay Tend to be Significantly Higher Than Staff Positions
Travel nurses and travel technicians can make significantly more than a staff nurse or staff technician. The take-home pay for travel nurses may vary based on the area, the need, the nurse’s specialty, and certifications amongst other factors, but most travel nurses make well over six figures. Travel nurses receive taxable hourly rates and non-taxed stipends.
As a traveling technician, especially during the pandemic, a dialysis technician can get paid at or near what a staff nurse is paid with no additional training or degree. Post pandemic rates are a little lower but still more than twice the amount of staff dialysis technicians in most cases. Inquiry with us on where those high-paying dialysis technician/CCHT jobs are located.
If you are a staff dialysis technician looking to up your pay without going back to school, travel should be on your career path, and booking an appointment with us should be on your list of things to do.
Pay rates usually reflect the cost of living in an area. Historically, the highest paying states for travel nurses are Texas, California, Massachusetts, New York & Washington. States with a lower cost of living and “destination” locations (Florida, Hawaii, Virgin Islands) pay lower rates. If money is a motivating factor for you, be flexible. Sometimes the highest paying assignments pay higher because they are not in the most ideal locations or are hard to fill shifts, though not always the case. Sometimes you can get a diamond in the rough and find a high-paying assignment in a rural area that is very close to the big city and now you have the best of both worlds, higher pay with a lower cost of living.
3) Generous Housing Stipend
For traveling healthcare professionals, the idea of finding housing quickly in an unfamiliar city can be scary and overwhelming. Having a housing concierge assigned to you to help you find safe affordable housing if you choose the housing stipend and having us provide the housing for you, that way you don’t have to be nervous and overwhelmed by the move. You just have to show up, unpack, and start work.
Choosing your own housing is the choice of a seasoned travel professional. Over time as a traveler, you get a system and rhythm for how to find housing quickly in your ideal area at the price points you are interested in. Finding your own housing gives you more flexibility and choice on exactly where you want to live and possibly save money.
If you prefer to live in an Airbnb, a helpful tip that we discovered from our experience traveling as healthcare professionals is to stay in a hotel/extended stay the first week you’re in a new city, that way you get to drive around and see what neighborhoods you would prefer to live in before you are tied into a long term contract with an apartment of Airbnb.
4) Group Health Benefits
Don’t feel like you will miss out on healthcare benefits as you travel as a healthcare professional. You will have excellent choices of group healthcare benefits.
Even if you decide to take time off between contracts, you can choose to keep your health insurance for up to a month.
5) Your Choice of Days off, including Holidays
You can choose to take the holidays off or you can choose to make the extra holiday pay. When it comes to travel nursing or being a dialysis technician, the ball is in your court. Just make sure you tell your recruiter which days off you require before or during contract negotiations. This is the beauty of having a quality recruiter/advocate on your side.
Most healthcare professionals wish they could have more holidays off. Travel nursing is the best way to insure you do.
6) If You Don’t Like Your Co-Workers, You’ll Have New Ones In 13 Weeks or Less
This can be one of the best perks. LOL! No matter where you work there may be people there that aren’t your “favorite” people to work with, however, the bonus of being a travel nurse is, that in a few weeks you’ll no longer have to work there and you can move on to the next contract assignment.
The other advantage of having a recruiter as your advocate is they are one call away, and a lot of times if someone is making your job difficult your recruiter can usually make a few phone calls on your behalf to help the situation because if you’re not happy, we are not happy. We’ll do everything in our power to advocate for our healthcare professionals.
What are your own best travel hacks?
What have you found helpful when you are having challenges with co-workers on a travel assignment? Share them with us below.
7) Career Growth Opportunities
Every resume includes past employment and formal education, but the best traveling nurse & technician’s resume includes much more. Travel nursing is an excellent way to expand your clinical skills, experience, and thereby, your resume. The variety of exposure to various and advanced technology practices and procedures are opportunities you may not have experienced otherwise, that will benefit you and your future patients. Having advanced clinical and soft skills, taking what you’ve learned during travel nursing assignments, and making your resume stand out from the competition to ensure that you can just about hand pick and be desired for any job you want. A nurse with travel credentials is viewed as well-rounded and hard-working and invaluable to your career and the healthcare facility or hospital for many years to come.
8) Explore A State You’ve desired To Visit Or Have Considered Moving To
If you’ve ever considered moving to a certain state, the most cost-effective way to do so with the ability to test it out is to find a travel assignment in that state or city first. That way you can get paid to go there and experience it before you move there. Once you have been there for a few months and have experienced the city, state, job, co-workers, etc. there will likely be no doubt whether or not you’d want to move forward with this move and extend your contract until your 12 months are up and then sign-on permanently or recalibrate within your first contract period and inquire with your recruiter about moving somewhere else when your contract is up.
Another perk to exploring your options this way is you can possibly receive a sign-on bonus if you decide to sign on permanently with the facility. We all love extra money. Just ask your recruiter how.
9) Fewer Taxes For Traveling RNs & Traveling Technicians
As a traveling healthcare worker, your stipends are classified as reimbursements and not as income, meaning, they are non-taxable. This is the financial benefit that allows nurses and technicians to bring home a higher total pay when compared to staff nurses and technicians.
10) Fast Start with Higher Pay
If you are looking to start work quickly travel nursing or technician work is for you. Travel nurses and technicians get paid more because they are employed to fill short-term needs quickly and accept assignments in areas with severe staff shortages. Extra compensation is in exchange for your flexibility and eagerness to work in hard-to-fill or slow-to-fill locations.
Also, if you have a gap in your work history, this may be a way to get back to work with little to no delay since they need your expertise now and you need to start working as soon as possible. This can be a win, win situation for all involved.