The Best Travel Nursing Companies – 2019
Finding the best travel nursing agencies is both difficult and important. It’s important because travel nurses entrust these companies with some of the most crucial aspects of their lives. It’s difficult because there are over 250 travel nursing companies with ratings and reviews scattered across multiple resources. So, for a third consecutive year, we aggregated thousands of reviews from some of the most trusted resources to bring you this list of the best travel nursing companies of 2019.
Please Note: This article was written in 2019. While it is still very useful, we highly recommend reviewing our newer articles below:
The Best Travel Nursing Companies of 2021
The Best Travel Nursing Companies 2022
The Best Travel Nursing Companies 2023
The Best Travel Nursing Companies 2024
Why It’s Difficult To Determine The Best Travel Nursing Companies
As we discussed in our previous articles on this topic, two interrelated issues make it difficult for travel nurses to determine which travel nursing companies are the best.
Surveying the Rating Services for Travel Nursing Companies
First, there are tons of services that offer ratings and reviews. Often times, the ratings and reviews do not correlate across services. Therefore, travel nurses need to check multiple review sites to get a clear picture of an agency.
Moreover, we recognized a new challenge this past year. We found a couple of industry specific websites with fake reviews.
It’s not the travel nursing companies that left fake reviews. Instead, it was the review websites themselves that left the fake reviews. They do this to create the perception that tons of people are using their service.
We’ve seen new review sites launch and have hundreds of reviews for a single company within weeks of launching. These websites couldn’t possibly be getting enough traffic to generate this level of reviews legitimately.
The reviews are poorly worded and very brief. They abruptly stop being added to the service after a short period.
This means travelers also need to know which review sites they can trust.
Ratio of Travel Nurses to Travel Nursing Companies
Second, the ratio of travel nurses to travel nursing companies is quite low. Meanwhile, the landscape of the travel healthcare industry is such that the distribution of travel nurses across companies is lopsided.
This means a relatively small number of companies have a relatively high number of travelers working with them. The rest of the travel nurses are distributed across a large number of companies.
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The problem here is that it takes a lot of customers for any service, including travel nursing companies, to get a significant number of reviews. Meanwhile, travel nurses are spreading reviews across the high number of review services.
Now, this wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for one simple fact. A significantly large cohort of experienced travel nurses contend that small to medium sized travel nursing companies deliver the best service for the best pay.
We’re not here to debate whether or not this contention has merit. However, the fact remains, it’s difficult to evaluate small to mid-sized travel nursing companies because they have fewer customers and their reviews are spread out across multiple services.
How We Determined The Best Travel Nursing Agencies For 2019
For these reasons, we started aggregating travel nursing company reviews from reputable sources in 2017. This year, like last year, we collected the number of reviews and average score for every travel nursing company we could find on the following websites:
Rating Services We Aggregate
- Highway Hypodermics
- Travel Nursing Central
- Indeed
- Glassdoor
Next, we converted all the scores to a 100-point scale. Then, we calculated the weighted-average score for each company.
Next, we calculated two “Difference Scores”. These scores are intended to recognize the difference between an agency’s rating score for this year versus last year.
This way, companies with increases are rewarded and companies with decreases are penalized. After all, this is a “Best Travel Nursing Companies Of The Year” list not a “Best Companies Of All Time” list.
It’s important to note that the Difference Scores can push a score above 100 points. We have several such companies on the list this year.
Scoring Breakdown and Minimum Requirements
The scoring calculations have various minimum requirements. Additionally, companies must meet certain general minimum requirements to make it on the list.
Ultimately, the scoring system is quite complex. Additionally, the scoring system has several nuances and details that are worth your consideration. Therefore, we provide a highly detailed discussion and sample score toward the end of the article.
Interesting Insights From Travel Nursing Company Ratings For 2019
This year, we collected all the data between May 24th and May 31st of 2019. Here are some the general observations we found interesting this year:
Interesting Observations
- Our 2017 “Best Travel Nursing Companies” article has been viewed more than 180,000 times. It’s our 3rd most viewed article of all time.
- Our 2018 “Best Travel Nursing Companies” article has been viewed more than 75,000 times. It’s been picking up steam the last few months and we fully expect it to surpass the 2017 article.
- We aggregated 67,364 scores for 305 travel nursing companies this year. Last year, it was 48,377 scores for 285 companies. That’s an increase of 18,987 new scores and 20 new companies. It’s important to note that some of the companies are now defunct. Also, 2,600 of the new scores were for Randstad on Glassdoor, and 3,734 were for Maxim Healthcare on Indeed. Somehow, we didn’t find either of these last year. Excluding these two, there were 14,503 new scores. That’s a ton for this small industry!
- The weighted average of all scores for all agencies was 78.13 for our 2019 list. That’s down from 79.20 the previous year. Despite the downtrend, travel nursing companies are still performing exceptionally well relative to other industries.
Travel Nursing Central
Travel nurses added 1,484 new reviews on Travel Nursing Central last year. That brings TNCs total reviews to 8,911.
The weighted-average score of all reviews on TNC was 84.15 out of a possible 100. That’s an increase of 1.74 over the previous year.
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This is an indication that travel nurses are quite happy with the service they receive from travel nursing companies overall. And remember, TNC accepts reviews only from travel healthcare professionals.
Highway Hypodermics
Travel nurses added 331 new reviews on Highway Hypodermics last year. That brings the total number of reviews on Highway Hypodermics to 2,761.
The weighted-average score of all reviews on Highway Hypodermics was 17.38 out of a possible 20. That’s an increase of .11 over last year.
The score equates to 86.9% on a 100-point scale. Again, this is an indication that travel nurses are happy with the service they receive from travel nursing companies overall.
We tallied 925 more public reviews for travel nursing companies on Facebook this year. That brings Facebook’s total public reviews to 7,923.
The weighted-average score of all reviews on Facebook was 4.54 out of a possible 5. That’s .03 higher than last year’s weighted-average score.
Facebook Changes
It’s also important to note that Facebook made some changes to their reviews this past year. Specifically, Facebook replaced the Star Ranking System with a Recommendation System. Now, users simply make a selection to recommend or not recommend a service.
This means the scoring changed as well. Facebook kept the previous reviews and scores and they merged the new scoring system with the old. Therefore, they still use a 5-point scale.
Additionally, Facebook now states that only public reviews or recommendations are counted toward a company’s overall rating. For example, you might see a review page that displays a rating of 4.5 on 50 reviews with 75 recommendations.
Essentially, not all recommendations are counted as reviews because some of them are private and Facebook only counts public recommendations in the rating score. Therefore, we included only the number of public ratings and the rating score in our dataset.
Indeed
We found 9,850 new reviews for travel nursing companies on Indeed this year. That brings Indeed’s total to 30,740 reviews.
6,073 of those reviews were from Maxim Healthcare and Randstad. We did not find any reviews for those companies the previous year, so we must have missed them.
Controlling for those, Indeed had 3,772 new reviews last year. That’s well over double the number of new reviews on Travel Nursing Central.
The weighted-average score of all reviews on Indeed was 3.72 out of a possible 5. That’s a decrease of .07 compared to last year.
The score equates to 74.4 on a 100-point scale. While that’s much lower than what we see on TNC or Highway Hypodermics, it’s still really strong compared to other industries.
Glassdoor
We found 5,392 new reviews of travel nursing companies on Glassdoor this year. That brings Glassdoor’s total to 13,759 reviews.
2,600 of those reviews were from Randstad. We did not find any reviews for Randstad on Glassdoor last year, so we must have missed them. Controlling for those, Glassdoor had 2,785 new reviews last year.
The weighted-average score of all reviews on Glassdoor was 3.56 out of a possible 5. That’s even with last year.
The score equates to 71.2 on a 100-point scale. Again, while that’s much lower than what we see on TNC or Highway Hypodermics, it’s still pretty strong compared to other industries.
We found 1,181 new reviews of travel nursing companies on Google this year. That brings the total number of travel nursing company reviews on Google to 3,270.
The weighted average score of all reviews on Google was 4.44. That’s an increase of .04 over the previous year.
The score equates to 88.8 on a 100-point scale. Here again, this score indicates that travel nursing companies are delivering good service.
That said, it’s important to note that Google focuses on “local reviews”. This means that you typically need to be located in a company’s locality or search for the company name and location information in order for Google to display the reviews and offer the option to leave a review.
For example, a search for “Atlas Medstaff” might not return the reviews and review option for Atlas Medstaff. However, a search for “Atlas Medstaff Omaha, NE” will almost always return the reviews and the review option.
Why 20 Travel Nursing Companies Make Our List
Our list includes the 20 highest scoring travel nursing companies that met our minimum requirements. We choose to list 20 companies for several reasons.
First, the scores indicate that all of these companies have been delivering excellent service to their employees. For example, the 20th ranked company on our list has an average overall score of 90.01 and a total score of 89.79.
That is freaking awesome! Scores like this indicate that all of these companies are worthy of your consideration.
Second, we’re huge advocates of working with multiple companies. In fact, we’ve spent years developing BluePipes, a platform that empowers healthcare professionals to work with more companies than ever before.
The more companies a traveler works with, the more access they have to the job market, the faster they land jobs, the more money they make, the better service they receive, and much more. We recommend working with all 20 companies and our powerful platform will help you do it easily!
Third, while 20 companies seem like a lot for a “best of” list, it only represents 6% of the entire industry. Moreover, we’re not even 100% certain that these 20 companies combined have access to 100% of the open jobs on the market at any given time.
Connect With The Best Travel Nursing Companies on BluePipes
The great news is that you can connect and communicate with 18 of the top 20 travel nursing companies right here on BluePipes. Our list below highlights with green text the travel nursing agencies that have an active company page on BluePipes.
Claiming and managing a company page on BluePipes is free, so not all of these companies are paying customers. However, travel healthcare professionals can still communicate with them for free through our platform so your personal contact information stays private.
The easiest way to manage your travel nursing career.
In addition, BluePipes provides the industry’s most comprehensive and powerful profile for travel healthcare professionals. You can render your profile as a beautiful resume in one of two formats that recruiters love.
You can also render your BluePipes profile as a full job application complete with standard attestations and background questions. BluePipes provides free skills checklists that you can save and download at your convenience as well.
You can upload copies of licenses and certifications so you manage all your career documentation from one central platform. And you can use it for the life of your career whether that’s travel, PRN or Permanent.
Of course, we have a travel nursing job board and tons of other features to help make your travel nursing job search quick and simple. Select the button below to discover why travel nurses are calling BluePipes their “secret weapon”.
Who Are The Best Travel Nursing Companies Of 2019?
We strongly encourage you to consider each of the companies on this list. Different companies have access to different jobs. Moreover, different companies provide different types of service and different types of benefits.
Your unique circumstances and requirements will determine which companies on the list are the best fit for you. You can rest assured that they are all very highly rated.
Here is our list of the best travel nursing companies of 2019.
| Rank | Company | Total Reviews | Total Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LRS Healthcare | 374 | 105.63 |
| 2 | LiquidAgents Healthcare | 960 | 103.29 |
| 3 | Axis Medical Staffing | 278 | 99.89 |
| 4 | Triage Staffing | 654 | 99.69 |
| 5 | Advantis Medical | 64 | 99.03 |
| 6 | Host Healthcare | 549 | 95.52 |
| 7 | Republic Health Resources | 355 | 94.97 |
| 8 | Alliant Healthcare Staffing | 83 | 94.89 |
| 9 | Travel Nurse Across America | 1,299 | 94.84 |
| 10 | FlexCare Medical Staffing | 1,635 | 94.55 |
| 11 | Medical Staffing Solutions, Inc. | 208 | 94.14 |
| 12 | United Staffing Solutions (USSI) | 209 | 93.99 |
| 13 | Gifted Healthcare | 281 | 93.94 |
| 14 | Aya Healthcare | 492 | 93.83 |
| 15 | Atlas MedStaff | 277 | 93.69 |
| 16 | TaleMed | 873 | 93.58 |
| 17 | Medical Staffing Options | 141 | 93.26 |
| 18 | Tailored Healthcare Staffing | 482 | 92.42 |
| 19 | White Glove Placement, Inc. | 1,453 | 91.42 |
| 20 | PPR Travel Nursing | 394 | 91.04 |
Best Travel Nursing Companies in Detail
Here are some details on each company for you to consider. Again, we strongly urge you to consider all companies on this list. They all have amazing accolades and your unique circumstances will determine which companies are a good fit.
1. LRS Healthcare
LRS Healthcare had an absolutely amazing year. They added 107 new reviews. Their Aggregate Average Score increased to 96.63 out of a possible 100.
They performed amazingly well on each individual platform as well. For example, they added 14 new reviews on Travel Nursing Central with an average score of 98 out of a possible 100! They also performed exceptionally well on Indeed, Glassdoor and Google.
LRS Healthcare was founded in 2006. They’re located in Omaha, Nebraska. We had them at number 7 on our list of best companies in 2017 and number 17 last year.
2. LiquidAgents Healthcare
LiquidAgents Healthcare added 320 new reviews this year. That’s the third most new reviews of any company on this list. Their Aggregate Average Score increased over 2 points to 94.64 out of a possible 100.
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Additionally, LiquidAgents’ average score increased on 4 of the 6 platforms. The only reason it didn’t increase on Facebook or Google is because their average scores are 4.9 and 5 respectively out of a possible 5 for both platforms.
LiquidAgents was founded in 2003. They’re based in Plano, Texas. They earned the number 13 spot on our list of best travel nursing companies for 2017 and 2018. They earned a silver rating on Travel Nursing Central in 2017 and 2018.
3. Axis Medical Staffing
Axis Medical Staffing had another great year. They added 127 new reviews. Their aggregate average score increased to 94.36 out of a possible 100.
They added 48 new reviews on Travel Nursing Central with an average score of 96.2 out of a possible 100. As a result, they earned a spot on TNC’s list of top companies for 2019.
Axis Medical Staffing is based in Seattle, Washington and they were founded in 2003. We had them on our list of best companies in 2017 at number 5 and in 2018 at number 9. They were also on TNC’s list in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
4. Triage Healthcare Staffing
It’s no surprise to see Triage Staffing ranked high atop our list this year. They actually have the third highest Aggregate Average Score of all the companies on our list at 95.68 out of a possible 100. They’ve also been the number 2 ranked company on our list for the last 2 years!
Triage had another solid year too. They added 76 new reviews. Their Average Aggregate Score increased slightly. Their scores on Indeed and Travel Nursing Central were also up year-over-year.
Triage Staffing was founded in 2006 and is based in Omaha, Nebraska. They started as a boutique firm specializing in Radiology. They quickly expanded to provide service for all healthcare modalities nationwide. Inc Magazine recognized them as one of the fastest growing companies in the nation for 3 years in a row.
5. Advantis Medical
Advantis Medical bursts onto our list to claim the fifth spot! We say, “They burst on to the list”, because they were founded in 2018.
Since then, they’ve amassed 64 reviews across all platforms. A significantly high percentage of those reviews come from travel nurses who are simply gushing about the experience they’ve had with Advantis.
Given that they got their start in 2018, they didn’t have enough reviews to qualify for our list last year. Additionally, they didn’t have enough scores to qualify for any of the year-to-year bonus points we calculated for this year.
This means they had to qualify based on the merits of their Aggregate Average Score alone. So, they registered a score of 99.03. This was the highest Aggregate Average Score of all the companies on our list by a long shot.
While Advantis is a new and smaller company, they have a solid pipeline of jobs and a highly experienced management team. They’re reviews indicate they’re executing at a high level and deserving of the recognition here.
6. Host Healthcare
Host Healthcare added 297 new reviews this year. They are one of only 4 companies to have an Aggregate Average Score of more than 95 out of a possible 100.
Host Healthcare has become a mainstay on “Best Travel Nursing Company” lists like this one. They were 5th on our list in 2018 and 9th in 2017. They were 3rd on Highway Hypodermics list in 2018. This year, they made it on the lists of both Travel Nursing Central and Highway Hypodermics.
The San Diego Union Tribune named Host Healthcare one of the best places to work in 2017 and 2018. Inc Magazine recognized Host as one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the country. They’ve won many other awards as well.
This is absolutely amazing for a company that was founded in 2012. However, it comes as no surprise for those familiar with the company. They have an absolutely amazing management team who has fostered a world class company culture. We expect to see them thrive and continue to deliver amazing results.
7. Republic Health Resources
Republic Health Resources added 103 new reviews this year which brought their total number of reviews to 355. The Irving, Texas based company increased their Aggregate Average Score by over 1.7 points this year and they earned higher scores on several individual platforms. The bonus points from their strong year helped push them inside the top ten.
Republic Health Resources made our list in 2017 at number 14. They’ve been on Travel Nursing Central’s list for the last 3 years straight, including Gold Tier honors this year.
8. Alliant Healthcare Staffing
Alliant Healthcare Staffing shot up the ranks this year. The company’s Aggregate Average Score increased well over 5 points to 88.97. That increase was based largely on the 20+ glowing reviews their satisfied healthcare professionals added to Facebook during the past year.
Alliant Healthcare Staffing was founded in 1986, which makes them the longest running company on our list. It’s fair to say they have a highly experienced team at your disposal.
9. Travel Nurse Across America
Travel Nurse Across America was the 4th ranked company on our list last year and they had another strong year. Their Aggregate Average Score increased by over 1.5 points to 91.07. Their score increased on several individual platforms as well.
TNAA has a strong history of earning their spot on “Best Travel Nursing Company” lists. They’ve been one of the top companies or an honorable mention on Travel Nursing Central’s list for the last 6 years straight! That includes a Gold Ranking this year.
Based in Little Rock, Arkansas and founded in 1999, TNAA is one of the largest companies on our list. By some accounts they’re one of the 10 largest travel nursing companies. They’ve racked up over 1,200 reviews over the years which is a great track record.
10. FlexCare Medical Staffing
When it comes to track records, FlexCare Medical Staffing has a record fit for the Travel Nursing Company Hall of Fame, if there was such a thing of course. They’ve been on Travel Nursing Central’s list of top travel nursing companies for the last 6 years, including a Gold finish this year. This year marked the 9th year FlexCare has made it on Highway Hypodermics list!
We tallied 214 new reviews for FlexCare this year. Their Aggregate Average Score increased slightly. With the 214 new reviews, FlexCare now has 1,635 reviews all time. This makes them the most reviewed company on our list!
11. Medical Staffing Solutions, Inc.
Medical Staffing Solutions, Inc racked up 23 new reviews this year. Travel healthcare professionals submitted every one of those reviews. Nearly every one of the reviews was positive. As a result, their Aggregate Average Score increased slightly to 92.36.
MSSI is based in Rice Lake, Wisconsin where they were founded in 2000. While they staff nationwide, they have a very strong footprint in the Midwest.
12. United Staffing Solutions (USSI)
We counted 53 new reviews for USSI this year. That brings their total number of reviews to 209. Their Aggregate Average Score increased by 1.52 points to 89.42.
USSI made our 2017 list of best travel nursing companies at number 8. They were an honorable mention this year for both Highway Hypodermics and Travel Nursing Central.
13. Gifted Healthcare
Gifted Healthcare has solid scores across all six platforms that we measure. Their Average Aggregate Score is 89.91 on 281 reviews. Their score increased slightly this year over last.
Gifted is a nurse owned and operated healthcare staffing company that was founded in 2006. They’re based in New Orleans. They staff travel assignments nationwide and have a huge PRN presence in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
14. Aya Healthcare
Aya is by far the largest company on our list. By one account, they’re the second largest travel nursing company with roughly 9% market share.
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We counted 170 new reviews for Aya this year. That brought their total to 492 reviews. Their Average Aggregate Score is only 82.70. However, their score increased by nearly 5 points from the previous year. They also registered increases across multiple platforms. They made the list based on an exceptionally strong year in reviews.
15. Atlas MedStaff
Travel nurses rave about Atlas MedStaff on Facebook. We’re surprised they don’t place higher on this list. That said, their Average Aggregate Score is really good at 92.17.
We counted 38 new reviews for Atlas this year, which brought their total to 277 reviews all time. Atlas was number 8 on our list of the best travel nursing companies in 2018 and number 10 in 2017. They’ve earned their way onto Highway Hypodermics’ list of the top 10 travel nursing companies for the last 3 years.
16. TaleMed
TaleMed is another highly decorated travel nursing company. TaleMed has been on the top travel nursing company lists of both Travel Nursing Central and Highway Hypodermics for the last 6 years! That includes Gold Honors on TNC and 4th place on Highway Hypodermics this year!! They made our list of best companies at number 16 in 2017.
We counted 153 new reviews for them this past year. That brought their total number of reviews across all platforms to 873. Their Aggregate Average Score increased slightly to 90.05.
17. Medical Staffing Options
Medical Staffing Options made our list based on a very strong year in reviews that added 3.18 points to their Aggregate Average Score. For example, they received 31 new reviews with an average score of 92.6 out of a possible 100 on Travel Nursing Central this past year. That was good enough to get them an Honorable Mention on TNCs list of top companies for 2019. Highway Hypodermics also had Medical Staffing Options listed as an Honorable Mention on their 2019 list.
18. Tailored Healthcare Staffing
This is Tailored Healthcare Staffing’s 3rd year in a row to make our list of the best travel nursing companies of the year. They were number 11 last year and number 16 in 2017.Tailored has also been on Travel Nursing Central’s list of the top travel nursing companies for the last 4 years. They’ve been on Highway Hypodermics’ list for 2 of the last 4 years.
We tallied 82 new reviews for them this year, which brings their total number of reviews to 482. Their Average Aggregate Score increased slightly to 90.66.
19. White Glove Placement, Inc.
We’re glad to see White Glove Placement, Inc. make our list of the best travel nursing companies for the second straight year. This year, their Average Aggregate Score increased nearly 1 point to 91.11.
We counted 484 new reviews for them this year. That’s the most of any company that made our list! They now have 1,453 total reviews. That’s the second most of all companies on our list!
White Glove Placement, Inc. was founded in 1995 and they’re based in Brooklyn, New York. They staff travel nursing jobs nationwide. However, they have a massive presence all throughout the state of New York. They’re deeply connected with New York’s healthcare providers. If you’re interested in working in New York for a travel contract, PRN or otherwise, then you should definitely talk to White Glove Placement, Inc..
20. PPR Travel Nursing
This is PPR Travel Nursing’s second straight year on our list. We counted 47 new reviews for them this year and their Average Aggregate Score increased to 90.03. They now have a total of 394 reviews across all platforms.
PPR has been in business for over 23 years. They’ve received numerous awards and honors over that time. Perhaps most interestingly, Fortune Magazine recognized PPR as one of the best small-to-medium-sized-businesses to for 13 of the last 23 years!
PPR was the top-ranked travel nursing company on Highway Hypodermics list in 2018. They also made the list 2014-2016 and 2019.
About BluePipes’ List of Best Travel Nursing Companies for 2019
As we mentioned above, our scoring system is a little complex. Therefore, we provide a detailed breakdown of the scoring for one company below.
Additionally, our scoring system has several nuances that you may want to consider. We discuss those nuances below as well.
Travel Nurse Reviews vs. Internal Staff Reviews
As we mentioned above, we aggregate all scores from the following services:
Rating Services We Aggregate
- Highway Hypodermics
- Travel Nursing Central
- Indeed
- Glassdoor
Highway Hypodermics and Travel Nursing Central both have a rule that only travel healthcare professionals can submit reviews. Both travelers and internal staff can post reviews on the other services.
We use both types of service for several reasons. First, we strongly believe that the best companies for travel nurses are also the best companies for internal staff. In our view, the two are closely related.
For example, if a company is terrible for internal staff, then the company will have a high turnover rate for internal staff. This means that travel nurses will routinely lose their recruiters, something they do not like. It also means that a company’s service levels will be inconsistent.
Second, Facebook, Indeed, Glassdoor and Google are among the most trafficked services in the world. As a result, they get far more reviews. They also have more people viewing those reviews. Therefore, these services are highly relevant.
Third, the ratio of travelers to internal staff at any given company is typically 10 to 1 or higher. Therefore, it’s most likely that reviews from travelers will surpass reviews from internal staff on any given service.
Travel Nursing Company “Review Solicitation”
Travel nurses should also consider “Review Solicitation” when relying on reviews to find the best travel nursing companies. Review Solicitation is the act of soliciting reviews from employees or customers.
The problem is that companies might solicit reviews only from people who the company knows are happy with the service. Therefore, the review score provides an inaccurate representation of the service.
This practice is becoming more and more common. However, we hope our scoring system tempers the effect of review solicitation. That’s because it’s easy for a company to solicit reviews on one platform, but much more difficult to solicit reviews on 6 platforms.
Either way, we recommend that travel nurses inspect the reviews a little more closely when researching. That’s why we’ve conveniently linked to all of the review pages for the companies on this list.
Sample Scoring Breakdown From The List Of Best Travel Nursing Companies
Now let’s take a look at a detailed breakdown of the scoring for one of the companies on this year’s list. We’re going to breakdown the scoring for Triage Healthcare Staffing.
As we mentioned above, we start by entering the number of reviews and average score for every travel nursing company into a spreadsheet. We do this for all 6 of the rating services.
Base Requirements
Next, we check to make sure companies meet the minimum requirements. Those requirements are as follows:
Minimum Requirements for Best Travel Nursing Companies
- A company must have a minimum of 50 total reviews across all platforms. That’s not 50 for each platform, but 50 for all platforms combined.
- A company must have a minimum of 15 new reviews from healthcare professionals in the last year.
The second requirement was new this year. Last year, we only required 15 new reviews total. This year, we noticed that several companies met this minimum with reviews from internal staff only.
For example, a company might have 5 reviews from internal staff on 4 different platforms for a total of 20 new reviews. The same company might only have 5 new reviews from healthcare professionals, bringing their total to 25.
We feel strongly that including companies based on such a review profile would jeopardize the legitimacy of the list. So, we took the time to audit the reviews to ensure a minimum of 15 new reviews came from healthcare professionals.
Our sample company, Triage Healthcare Staffing, has a total of 654 scores across all platforms. Therefore, they meet the requirement for a minimum of 50 total scores.
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Triage had 76 new scores this year. They had 25 new scores on Travel Nursing Central and 25 new scores on Highway Hypodermics. Both platforms only accept reviews from healthcare professionals, so Triage significantly exceeded the minimum requirement for 15 new reviews from healthcare professionals.
Calculating the Score
Next, we calculate a “Total Score” for each company. The Total Score is the sum of the following three scores:
Score Categories for Best Travel Nursing Companies
- The “Aggregate Average Score”
- The “Aggregate Difference Score”
- The “Individual Difference Score”
Total Score = Aggregate Average Score + Aggregate Difference Score + Individual Difference Score
The Aggregate Average Score
Let’s take a look at a sample Aggregate Average Score. Here is the data we collected for Triage Healthcare Staffing for 2019:
| Source | Scores | Average |
| Travel Nursing Central | 79 | 88.1 |
| Highway Hypodermics | 26 | 19.1 |
| 269 | 4.9 | |
| Indeed | 45 | 4.5 |
| GlassDoor | 80 | 4.9 |
| 155 | 4.9 |
First, we sum the total number of scores across all platforms. For Triage Healthcare Staffing, that total came to 654:
| Travel Nursing Central | 79 |
| Highway Hypodermics | 26 |
| 269 | |
| Indeed | 45 |
| GlassDoor | 80 |
| 155 | |
| TOTAL | 654 |
Next, as we mentioned above, different rating services use different scoring systems. Travel Nursing Central uses a 100-point system. Highway Hypodermics uses a 20-point system. The rest of the services use a 5-point system.
Therefore, we need to convert them all to one system in order aggregate the scores. We chose to convert them all to a 100-point system.
To do so, we multiply the scores for Highway Hypodermics by 5 (5*20 = 100). We multiply the others by 20 (5*20 = 100).
Next, we need to calculate the total score for each company for each platform. To do so, we multiply the score for each service by the corresponding number of scores.
For example, for Travel Nursing Central, we multiply 88.1 by 79 for a total of 6,959.9. The complete calculation for Triage Healthcare Staffing is as follows:
| Source | Equation | Total |
| Travel Nursing Central | 79 * 88.1 | 6,959.9 |
| Highway Hypodermics | 26 * 19.1 * 5 | 2,483 |
| 269 * 4.9 * 20 | 26,362 | |
| Indeed | 45 * 4.5 * 20 | 4,050 |
| GlassDoor | 80 * 4.9 * 20 | 7,840 |
| 155 * 4.9 * 20 | 15,190 | |
| TOTAL | SUM | 62,574.90 |
Finally, we divide the total points by the total number of reviews to arrive at an Aggregate Average Score. For example, Triage Healthcare Staffing’s Aggregate Average Score is 95.68027523 (62,574.9/ 654).
The Aggregate Difference Score
The Aggregate Difference Score rewards or penalizes a company based on the difference between their aggregate score from this year and their aggregate score from last year. We simply subtract last year’s aggregate score from this year’s aggregate score and add the difference to this year’s aggregate score.
There are two criteria for this score:
Minimum Requirements for the Aggregate Difference Score
- To qualify for this score, a company must have had more than 50 total reviews in the previous year. This qualification ensures some modicum of adequate sample size.
- We cap this score at 5 points per company. This qualification also works to ensure some modicum of adequate sample size.
Our sample company, Triage Healthcare Staffing, earned an Aggregate Difference Score of .01176312. Their score was 95.68027523 in 2019 and 95.66851211 in 2018 (95.68027523 – 95.66851211 = .01176312).
Yes, all those decimal places matter! We have companies on the list that are separated by less than .09 of one point.
The Individual Difference Score
The Individual Difference Score rewards or penalizes a company for the difference between their average score this year and their average score last year on each rating service. This year, we made significant changes to the algorithms that calculate these scores.
We’ve chosen to keep these calculations private this year to ensure that our list cannot be recreated. However, please contact us if you’re a healthcare staffing agency or travel nurse who is interested in learning more.
If you made it through all that number crunching, then kudos to you. Imagine doing that 305 times! Thankfully, the spreadsheet runs most of the calculations!! The time consuming part is collecting all the data and double-checking to make sure the top ranked companies are on the up-and-up.
As always, we hope you found this article useful. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns about these rankings or anything else travel nursing related.
