Benefits of Travel Nursing Blog
Travel nursing is an incredibly fruitful career and can be very lucrative with the benefits of travel nursing that are unparalleled in staff nursing. A few of the benefits of travel nursing monetarily included taking advantage of tax-free reimbursements by finding your own housing, accept crisis pay contracts or assignments that offer 4 shifts a week and take extension bonuses that are offered at the end of a contract. It is all about managing your money and managing your time as a traveler in a cost-efficient way. The benefits of travel nursing outside of money involve health and wellness, medical, dental, and vision insurance, and some hospitals will match bonuses to retirement savings funds.
- Salary
Travel nurse’s salaries are quite competitive, especially since travelers are typically in high demand during crisis seasons and incentives are vital to commitment. Travel nurses make more than staff nurses due to the construction of their pay packages and the various “travel” portions that can be manipulated and changed based on individual need. The salary of a travel nurse is exciting, but it also depends on many factors and is very rarely consistent. Either way, salary is usually a large benefit of travel nursing.
Your financial gains will depend on things like:
- Location of your assignment, each state will be different
- The nursing specialty you took an assignment within
- Rapid Response, ICU, and Critical Care generally offer more money
- Your start date, length of assignment, etc.
- The amount of people you are traveling with
- Whether or not you own a tax home
- The housing you choose
- The cost of living in your new location
- Your extra spending
- Housing
Many agencies will pay for a traveler’s housing and living arrangements. This is a great benefit of travel nursing that you won’t see very often for other professions or nursing career paths. This is determined within the pay package and set ahead of time. In addition, many hospital locations and facilities have off-campus living where it is possible to live free of charge. The housing stipend, in that case, is extra money in your pocket.
For Wanderly, we have partnered with Furnished Finder, which is an online database of furnished, affordable housing for you to take advantage of. This way, you won’t waste money lugging all of your furniture around with you and will have a lot less moving work to do. You can simply search the area you are headed to and browse short-term hosing options that are already furnished for your travel ease.
- Insurance
Insurance is an important benefit of travel nursing.
The insurance options with travel nursing make your assignment worry-free, and that is a priceless benefit of travel nursing. There are insurance benefits provided both by travel agencies & Wanderly for you to take advantage of on your assignment.
The majority of our agency partners offer first-day health insurance as a benefit of travel nursing, so you do not have a lapse in coverage or another insurance option depending on your specific situation. Wanderly has partnered with eHealth, and we also offer insurance through them. With eHealth you can search through the plans to pick what is right for you, and you can also select short-term health insurance. eHealth also has family options.
From eHealth:
“Health insurance can help prevent staggering expenses if you face a medical emergency. Major medical insurance is a type of coverage that provides benefits for a broad range of health-care services, both inpatient and outpatient.”
If you choose to go with agency coverage as a benefit of travel nursing, call and find out when exactly when it ends. Sometimes insurance is good for 30 days after your assignment, and other times it expires when the assignment ends. If your insurance expires at the same time your assignment ends, you can pay for COBRA insurance. All companies have to offer COBRA insurance. You can pay to extend your coverage and then you do not have to endure a lapse or sign on with a new company too soon.
You can also choose independent coverage. It is trickier now to find insurance that will cover you from state to state. When you seek out independent insurance, you will not have to worry about state differences and insurance companies typically reimburse you for your expenses within the plan.
- Car Rental
Agencies do not typically cover car rentals for travel nurses. However, you an always negotiate one thing for another. It is important to note that if you exchange one benefit of travel nursing for a rental car, you should call and find out the costs of rental cars in the area you heading. Be sure that you are not sacrificing one benefit that may pay you $200 for a rental car that ends up being $350, see what we are saying? J
There are many rental car partners, rideshare partners, and transportation options.
You can always drive your own car to the assignment, or as our friend Kay Epi Slane from Highway Hypodermics says, you should try the RV lifestyle at least once in your travel career.
- Travel Stipend
This is a unique benefit of travel nursing. Travel nurses are offered travel stipends for housing, living expenses, food, etc. You can negotiate this part of your pay package and spend it as you please. Having this part of your day-to-day life paid for allows you to pocket any extra as well as your full salary.
Most nursing specialties and coalitions have a yearly conference where everyone can get together and travel nursing is no different. Every year, hundreds of travel nurses gather in Las Vegas to attend TravCon, who Wanderly has partnered with. TravCon is a benefit of travel nursing as it is a time for travelers to come together in the same place and relish in the reality of large community. TravCon is fun, entertaining, informative, and an exciting opportunity to really create a support group and understand your travel career.
There are many benefits of travel nursing. We cannot wait to continue to share Wanderly’s benefits and our agency partners with you.