How to Choose a Travel Assignment

Choosing a travel assignment as a travel nurse comes with a series of considerations. In order to help you pick the right assignment, we will walk through the things you need to consider here. 

Here is a brief overview of what the considerations are: location, hospital, contract details, pay, and housing. Feel free to click on each link to jump ahead to that section. I will also share some resources I use for researching these considerations. 

Location of the Travel Contract

Location is the first criteria I use to narrow down my search for a new assignment. 

First, narrow down which areas are possible for you. Do you have a nursing license for that state? If not, is it a state that can turn around an endorsement quickly? Can you physically get to the location by your start date? Are you ready for the weather conditions at your contract? For example, can your vehicle make the drive if conditions are snowy?

Next, consider if you are traveling with money in mind regardless of location, or are you hoping for a specific destination even if that means compromising on price? Remember, the more open you can be to different locations, the better your chance are of finding a high paying contract.

One thing that I struggle with when it comes to choosing a location is knowing what a place has to offer. For example, I would have never considered Idaho to be a place I’d like to visit because I’ve never heard much about it. It wasn’t until I started doing a little research that I learned how much natural beauty and outdoors activities Idaho has to offer. How many other places am I leaving off my list simply because I don’t know much about them? The point here is to keep an open mind when it comes to locations. 

Hospital

Before accepting any assignment, I always take a look at hospital reviews. Do not look at reviews on yelp or google. These will give you patient reviews which, let’s be real, are almost always negative. Instead, I want to know what other travel nurses experiences have been at that hospital. 

Travel nurse facebook groups have the largest database of reviews that I have found. Two groups in particular usually have the most information- “Tavel Nurse Network- The Gypsy Nurse” and “Facilities Cancellation Database”. Most of the time you can find reviews of specific hospitals using the search bar function in these groups. 

One more thing, remember to take any reviews you read with a grain of salt. I have worked at assignments that other people hate, but I love and vice versa. Experiences also tend to vary a lot between different units. Nonetheless, reading reviews can give you a better idea of what to expect from a given hospital. Every place will have it’s cons, but this can help you decide if those cons are do-able for you. 

Contract Details

The next part you will want to consider is details of the contract. Here are the biggest things to look out for:

Number of Hours

A trend I’ve noticed lately is 48 hour per week contracts (as opposed to the typical 36). If you want the 48 hours, more power to you. If not, know that usually you can ask for a 36 hour per week contract instead for a lower rate.

Overtime/On Call Requirements

I have not encountered any overtime or on call requirements so far in my travels, but this is a common part of operating room type specialties.

Also, if you are someone who likes to pick up overtime, check to see if the hospital allows it. I’ve encountered several who do not allow travel nurses to pick up overtime. Pay attention to the pay rate for overtime on your contract as well. 

Shift

The more flexible you can be in regards to shifts, the more options you will have. That said, do what is right for you. Personally, I no longer do night shift, but others love it. The shift should be clearly outlined in your contract. 

Cancellation Policy

Getting cancelled sucks because as travelers, this means we don’t get paid. While most do not, some hospitals will have a policy limiting the amount of times you can be cancelled per pay period. The facebook groups that I mentioned above can help you figure out which hospitals are notorious for cancelling travel nurses. **cough, cough, Banner in Arizona, cough, cough**

Speaking of cancellation, don’t let this scare you away from travel nursing. It does happen, but it’s not a frequent occurrence (especially if you avoid facilities that are known for it).

Personally, I have had one hospital cancel my contract, but it was well before the start date. I had one other drop the pay rate (also well before the start date). I have never been cancelled from a contract or even a shift after starting an assignment, and I’ve been travel nursing for over 2 years now. 

That said, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having an emergency fund as a travel nurse. If you want more information on emergency funds and on finances as a travel nurse, check out my other post: Wealth and Investing for Travel Nurses. 

Charting System/EMR

Your recruiter should be able to tell you which electronic medical record (EMR) a hospital uses.

I can tell you from experience, learning a new charting system will make the first couple of weeks of your assignment more stressful. Still, this doesn’t mean you should completely rule out unfamiliar charting systems. The more EMR’s you have experience with, the better your application will look. 

If you can, I recommend trying to get contracts with the big 3 EMRs in order to have an advantage in times that contracts are competitive. The big 3 EMRs are EPIC, Cerner and Meditech. The majority of hospitals in the US will use one of these charting systems. 

Float Policy

As a travel nurse, expect to be the first to float to another unit if need be. This isn’t the case at every hospital, but it’s pretty common. This usually doesn’t apply to some specialties, such as the ER and OR. There are some hospitals that float nurses more frequently than others such as hospitals in the Kaiser health system. 

Pay

Obviously pay is a huge consideration when choosing your travel assignment. It’s not always easy, however, to know the true pay of an assignment after you factor in things like duplicating expenses. Don’t worry, I have a full post on how to do that here: Is Travel Nursing Still Worth It (Financially). When you are finished here, I recommend checking out that article. After that, head over to my travel nurse pay calculator that you can use to compare staff pay and to compare multiple contracts at once. 

Housing

One last thing you should consider before taking an assignment is housing. You need to make sure that the area has housing available that fits your needs. You also need to make sure that the pay is still worth it with the cost of housing in the picture (refer to the link above to the “Is Travel Nursing Still Worth It” article). 

There are several resources available to travel nurses when it comes to housing. These include Airbnb, facebook housing pages, Furnished Finder and more. With any of these, it’s important to do your due diligence to avoid scams when it comes to actually securing housing. For the sake of this article on considerations prior to accepting an assignment, you simply want to check availability and costs. 

My personal favorite platform for finding housing is Furnished Finder. The landlords cater towards travel nurses typically offering furnished housing and month-to-month leases. Furnished Finder is usually less expensive and has less fees than Airbnb. 

Choosing Your Next Travel Assignment

In conclusion, the main points for you to consider prior to choosing your next travel assignment are: location, hospital reviews, contract specifics, contract pay, and housing availability. 

If you are looking for more tips and insights for travel nurses, check out my For Travel Nurses page that contains all of my articles on topics travel nurses need to know.