post written by Dan Kashulines

One thing I’ve learned working as a travel nurse is that you need to be able to advocate for yourself. You are an employee of the agency that hired you, but their interests are not always aligned with your interests. One area in particular that I have found it important to advocate for myself is when signing onto a contract. Your agent probably isn’t looking too hard into making sure the contract is best for you because it’s coming straight from the agency (not the hospital), so it’s already been approved by them or their boss.

That said, I have had two examples in particular of contracts that I was asked to signed that I didn’t feel comfortable signing. I’d like to share them here in case you’ve been asked to sign something similar or are wondering how far you can realistically expect to be able to go when it comes to altering a travel nurse contract. You can’t do much, but you can at times get the agency and/or hospital to change things to better serve and protect yourself.

Two week clause

If you’re brand new to travel nursing, you may not want to worry so much about negotiating when signing onto your first contract, after all, you’re finally getting the opportunity to be a travel nurse. But I suggest you don’t let your excitement get the best of you.

For my very first contract, I signed on to work nights at a hospital in South Carolina. I was brand new to travel nursing, so I didn’t know much about navigating signing on to contracts. I was also very excited to finally have a job, so I wasn’t apt to push back against any contract I was given. However, there were some pieces of it that gave me pause.

One thing I came to realize very quickly in travel nursing, is just how much power the hospital has to cancel a contract at will. In this contract I wasn’t being offered any compensation if the hospital decided to either cancel my contract or lower my rate, which they had the right to do at any point with zero days notice. This actually happened TWICE with this contract (a pay cut alteration to the SIGNED contract) including a day before Emma and I were set to make our move to South Carolina.

Considering you will likely be traveling across the country for a travel nurse contract, you probably shouldn’t be on board for taking that kind of risk. After the first contract break/change, I brought the issue up with my agent, and explained how it felt like I had no protection in the matter. He heard my concerns and after speaking with the account manager that deals with the hospital, a new contract was made up for me. This new contract had in place a two week clause which specified that if my contract were to be canceled, or my pay were to be dropped at any time, the hospital had to give two weeks notice before either of those two things went into effect. This offered me some protection in the event that things didn’t work out as stated in my contract.

Being let go “with cause”

Another example I can think of when I needed to negotiate my contract was when I was signing on to go to Arizona. It was kind of a crazy time. I was still working on a contract in Maine and at that very moment I was attending a friend’s wedding in Colorado. I had been working with my agent trying to find a contract in Arizona for about a week and received an offer and a proposed contract literally while we were helping them set up for the wedding.

I reading through the contract and most of it seemed pretty straightforward, except I noticed one thing I had a huge issue with. There was a line in the contract that indicated that if I were to be let go, I would owe the hospital up to two weeks worth of my pay. There was no further explanation, caveats, nothing, and on top of that, Arizona is an at-will state which means you can be let go from a job without your employer even needing to give a reason why.

Now, I believe the intention of this clause was in the event that I was fired/terminated from the hospital for a reasonable cause. I would owe them up to this amount of money because I was negligent. However, the wording of the contract did not specify that, so I was left open to a great deal of risk. It seemed to me and Emma that if the hospital decided the census didn’t meet the requirements for having a travel nurse anymore I would suddenly be out of a job and also owe the hospital thousands of dollars.

My agent didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, or at least that it was incredibly unlikely to be an issue so why worry about it, but this was another instance where I didn’t want to take a risk and had to advocate for myself. I asked my agent to reach back out to the account manager and get just two words written into the contract in that clause, “with cause.” This at least meant that the hospital would have to give a reason for terminating me which would potentially give me more of a leg to stand on if they did take advantage and we decided to fight it.

In the end, the hospital agreed and the new contract stated in the clause that if I were terminated or let go with cause I would then owe the hospital several thousand dollars. Still not great and this may seem like a minor difference, but it was enough to help us to be more comfortable signing the contract. Adding that phrase in there puts the burden of proof on the hospital to demonstrate that they had reason to terminate me if they were to suddenly do that and request the money from me.

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My experience with negotiating contracts has been hit or miss at times. Sometimes my agent has been supportive in advocating for me. Sometimes he’s given me some pushback. That is why I specify that this is an area where you need to be willing to advocate for yourself, because your agent may or may not do it for you and you may even need to convince them to try harder.

To put the advice simply, I’d say go with your gut. If you’re reading a contract and something doesn’t sit right take a closer look at it. Read it thoroughly and maybe run it by a couple of other people who are also nurses, travel nurses, or know something about contract law. Make sure you understand exactly what you’re agreeing to and what are the potential risks. If it becomes clear that there is risk specified in the contract that you’re not willing to take, bring that up to your agent. Tell them about it, advocate for yourself, push to have it changed. The worst thing that can happen is that the hospital turns around and refuses to change the contract and you’re left with the same decision. It never hurts to be your own advocate. 

what have you been able to negotiate in your contracts as a travel nurse?