Especially after the pandemic and the subsequent rise in travel nursing, many people have come to understand that travel nursing has many controversial sides to it. This is not new, but travel nursing boomed during the pandemic and the average pay for travel nurses skyrocketed to meet that need and encourage nurses to enter the field. The disparities between the pay of staff nurses and travel nurses became more stark, and more critiqued. Many people developed quite a critical attitude towards travel nursing (if they didn’t have one already), and this has persisted as the pandemic has calmed.

Covid-19 also helped bring to light a lot of the ways travel nurses are mistreated and unprotected. There is little regulation in the world of travel nursing and a lot of the time large travel nurse agencies (as well as large hospital groups) seem to make the rules. You can imagine whose best interests are being kept in mind when they’re making those rules. There are many things wrong with the healthcare system and the field of nursing in the United States, and the same goes for travel nursing. What was once meant to address a short term need has mushroomed into an entire industry, filled with flaws.

Hostility Towards Travel Nurses

Unfortunately, due to some genuine issues (and other concerns seeped in misinformation), travel nurses are often met with hostility by many healthcare professionals. Staff nurses can be tempted to resent the travel nurse for their higher pay, seeing travel nursing as a luxury and simply unfair.

THE UNJUSTIFIED HOSTILITY

Thankfully, Dan hasn’t encountered this much from the nurses he’s worked with directly while travel nursing. I always found that interesting. In our experience, it seems that the nurses with their boots on the ground at the facilities in need of extra help often recognize the usefulness of travel nurses. In contrast, doctors and nurses more removed from the places with the greatest shortages seem more quick to judge. Of course it doesn’t help matters that misinformation ran rampant in all aspects of healthcare during the pandemic, travel nursing included. Many people have one anecdote of one travel nurse’s supposed pay during the height of the pandemic that they use to “prove” their point of how selfish or even corrupt travel nurses are.

THE JUSTIFIED CONCERNS

Dan and I have both come across nurses and doctors alike who hold this view and let it be known when they find out that Dan is a travel nurse. It’s difficult to not be offended, but we remind ourselves that their concerns are often completely valid, if not completely well informed at times. If the system were perfect and working as it should, there would be no need for travel nurses. There are also strong arguments to be made that (staff) nurses in general deserve more than what they are typically paid.

Unfortunately, this is just not the case. There exists no perfect healthcare system in this world today, each is plagued with numerous flaws and shortcomings. Adequate staffing when it comes to nursing is a problem that is prevalent most everywhere, and we certainly see it here in the United States. Travel nurses sacrifice stability, convenience, comforts, and control over much of their lives to fill the gaps in the healthcare system. Yes, you do make a lot more money doing it than you would working as a staff nurse, but the scales do not fall heavily to one side even still.

Lack of Protection For Travel Nurses

TRAVEL NURSING DURING COVID-19

Though many travel nurses go into the field with altruistic hopes of filling the greatest need around the country, it’s romantic to think that this field operates in that way. Nurses may have that intention, but travel nurse agencies largely do not operate in that way. Let’s be honest, neither do many hospitals anymore. Travel nurses, especially during the pandemic, were often treated as a disposable “supply” as one pandemic travel nurse put it. Many made lots and lots of money during the pandemic, it’s true. However, they also upended their lives to do this incredibly important work and many walked into situations where they would quickly be lied to, taken advantage of, and underpaid from what they were promised.

People all around the US were suffering and even dying at least partially due to staffing shortages during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Healthcare workers were contracting Covid at work and dying. At the same time, hospitals and travel nurse agencies were using bait and switch tactics to attract travel nurses to jobs then ruthlessly cutting their pay, threatening their greatest asset and need. In my opinion, it’s naïve to think that the hospitals were anything less than complicit in these schemes, though the agencies seem to wear the greatest culpability.

TRAVEL NURSING SINCE COVID-19

This strategy of dropping a travel nurses pay has continued since the pandemic has waned. Sometimes the pay is dropped right before a travel nurse is set to start their contract, other times it’s once they’ve already begun. In either case, it’s typically after a travel nurse has relocated or at least signed a lease. The agencies blame the hospital and claim low census, though many reports have come out revealing this to be a lie. Multiple travel nurse agencies are currently engaged in lawsuits over these fraudulent practices.

Oftentimes, travel nurses find themselves in situations where they don’t know if they’re being taken advantage of or not. In the two weeks before Dan started his first travel nurse contract (after we had signed a lease), his pay was docked twice totaling in a 13% reduction of his pay. We came to know about the lawsuits during this time, but you never want to assume that’s what’s happening to you, even if it could be. There’s little a travel nurse can do in this situation to find out if their agency is telling the truth or not. Contracts exist between the hospitals and the travel nurse agencies that the travel nurse is a third part participant in, but not made privy to.

How Does This Happen?

Travel nurse agencies have been able to do this because the field is so minimally regulated. This leads to travel nurses being ill-protected from the hospitals they work at and the agencies they work for. It doesn’t help matters that many new travel nurses don’t know much about the field. Even the question of “who do you work for?” can be confusing for travel nurses, and when you can’t answer that clearly, you may also be quite confused about what your rights are.

Unfortunately, the recent popularity of travel nursing potentially makes travel nurses that much more at risk. Agencies and hospitals are typically unwilling to discuss any changes to their contracts which are incredibly sparse and unfair to travel nurses. But hey, there will be another travel nurse to come along soon enough if this one is uncomfortable with being charged thousands of dollars for being terminated with no explanation given…yeah that was in one of Dan’s contracts. We were actually able to negotiate the words “with cause” into that contract which felt like a huge win.

what needs to change

Personally, Dan and I both hope to see the healthcare system change in the coming years. Staff nurses often do deserve more than they receive for the work that they do. Travel nurses deserve fair treatment and equal protection. Some people do enter travel nursing merely for personal gain and do a bad job while on contract. However, one hopes that people with that kind of intention and attitude don’t enter a field like nursing, and if they do that they don’t make it far. Nursing is a profession focused on giving all that you have to give and caring for those who can’t care for themselves. Anyone who enters that line of work and commits themselves to doing it well, deserves the respect of us all.

Part of choosing to work as a travel nurse is weighing all of these negatives along with the many positives that I didn’t get into much in this post. For a more comprehensive look at that, check out my post on the pros and cons to travel nursing.