Everything travel nurses need to know about travel nursing pay, including negotiating, evaluating, and comparing travel nursing pay packages, and tax free money. There are over 60 articles in this blog category!

How to Calculate Travel Nursing Net Pay

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Calculating net pay is an important step in comparing competing travel nursing pay packages and ultimately deciding whether or not to accept a particular travel nursing job. The importance of net pay is relatively unique to travel nursing. This is due largely to the fact that levels of tax-free compensation vary so greatly. However, there are other important factors to consider. Here we’ll discuss the factors that affect net pay and provide a strategy for calculating it. Read more

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Sample Breakdown of a Travel Nursing Pay Package

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Travel nursing pay packages are complex because they incorporate many variables that are not common in traditional pay packages. Meanwhile, many people believe that travel nursing agencies are actively gouging hospitals and employees. In this article, we’ll provide a detailed breakdown of a travel nursing pay package, including all the costs that come out on the agency’s side. We hope this information helps travel nurses negotiate better pay packages and helps everyone achieve a more thorough understanding of how travel nursing pay works.
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What You Should Know about Travel Nursing Pay for Testing and Paperwork

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Travel nurses are consistently bombarded with paperwork and testing for each new travel nursing job they accept. It’s not uncommon for travel nurses to spend 6 to 12 hours completing paperwork and taking tests prior to even starting the assignment and that’s not counting the various physical exams that must routinely be taken. In many cases, agencies do not pay for the time spent completing these tasks. This leaves many travel nurses feeling like they’re getting ripped off and wondering how this is possible. Read more

12 Types of Travel Nursing Bill Rates

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What are travel nursing bill rates and why are they important?

A travel nursing bill rate is the hourly rate that a hospital agrees to pay a travel nursing agency for an hour of a travel nurse’s time at work. Bill rates are important to travel nurses because they’re the foundation of the travel nursing pay package. They determine how much money the travel nursing agency has to work with for a particular assignment. Therefore, higher bill rates typically mean higher pay rates.

Bill rates can vary from hospital to hospital. Sometimes, they even vary within the same hospital.  Meanwhile, there are several different types and categories of bill rates. In this article, we’ll define and discuss the most common types and categories of bill rates so you can approach this topic with confidence.

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3 Pitfalls When Discussing Travel Nursing Pay and How to Avoid Them

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Travel nursing pay packages are comprised of many different variables which can make accurate quantification quite difficult. Different recruiters have different ways of explaining travel nursing pay which further complicates the issue. Moreover, the lack of generally agreed upon vocabulary to describe pay packages adds yet more confusion. We’ve previously discussed how to break down pay packages for the purpose of comparing them. Here we’ll discuss some of the communication pitfalls to watch out for when obtaining information.  Read more

Should You Know Your Travel Nursing Pay Before Submission?

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Many travel nurses wonder whether or not they should negotiate a travel nursing pay package prior to being submitted by their agency for an assignment. My experience indicates that the vast majority of travelers believe that pay should indeed be negotiated prior to submission. However, standing firm on this requirement can diminish a travel nurse’s options and negotiating power.

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Travel Nursing Pay: The M&IE Stipend

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The tax-free aspect of the travel nursing pay package can get really confusing. Different companies approach and handle it in different ways. You’ll find many companies that refer to the Meals and Incidental Expenditure (M&IE) stipend as one of the components of their pay package.

Like the rest of the pay package, the M&IE stipend can be confusing. Recruiters often use different terms when describing it. Different agencies offer different amounts in the same area. Recruiters often do a poor job of defining it clearly. In the end, travel nurses are often left wondering what’s really going on with this compensation variable. Read more