What Every Travel Nurse Should Know About Negotiating with Bottom Lines

One of the top advantages of travel nursing cited by both travel nurses and agencies is the pay. It’s true that travel nursing pay packages are higher than permanent pay packages in many cases. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, travel nursing compensation packages aren’t all that lucrative.

As a result, many travel nurses maintain “bottom line” requirements. If assignments don’t meet the compensation requirements, then they are passed over until an assignment that meets the requirements is offered. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some considerations for adopting this strategy and some of its advantages and disadvantages.

What are “bottom lines” for travel nurses?

First, let’s define what we mean by “bottom lines.” Simply put, a bottom line exists when a travel assignment compensation package must meet or beat a predefined compensation requirement in order for the assignment to be accepted.

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For example, a traveler may require $31 per hour plus company provided housing and medical benefits to even consider a travel assignment. Similarly, a traveler may require that a travel assignment pay $1400 in weekly net pay to even consider the assignment.

Travel nurses rarely determine their bottom line requirements arbitrarily. There is almost always some logic behind the figure. For most, some measure of profitability is the primary factor in determining a bottom line. In this regard, travelers may calculate the various costs involved with the assignment and then determine a compensation requirement on top of the cost figure. They may also compare the pay package to the pay that they earn at their permanent job or local PRN job.

Considerations for bottom line requirements as a travel nurse:

Use bottom lines when you have solid alternatives

On the surface, maintaining bottom lines seems like a straightforward thing to do. And if you have steady work outside of your travel nursing work, then maintaining a bottom line is certainly the right thing to do. Why? If you pass up a travel nursing job, then you will have alternative work to fall back on to ensure that you continue to earn income.

Avoid bottom lines when you don’t have a backup plan

However, if travel nursing is your sole source of income or your work outside of travel nursing is unstable, then maintaining a bottom line requires a closer look. Missing weeks of work adds up very quickly.

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Therefore, passing on available assignments for future assignments that potentially pay more can be costly in the long run. Determining how costly missing weeks of work will be in the long-run requires a comparison between the assignment being passed up and the assignment that will be accepted in the future.

Calculating the cost of bottom lines

How these comparisons are run will depend on your unique circumstances. For example, if you are paying rent or a mortgage back at home and therefore have a “free” place to stay in between assignments, then you wouldn’t need to include the cost of housing in your calculations. However, if you are paying for housing or additional housing, then you should include the cost of housing in your calculations.

Let’s look at an example for clarification. In this example, you’re a travel nurse who doesn’t incur duplicate expenses. So, in between assignments, you are responsible for covering the cost of your own housing. In this case, the full value of the compensation package should be considered when determining the cost of missing 1 week of work.

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For example, if an agency offers a taxable base rate of $20 per hour plus, plus an M&IE stipend of $8 per hour, plus company provided housing, then the cost of missing one week of work would be $1008 (36 hours * $28/hour) plus the cost of housing for the week. As you can see, missing one week of work can cost anywhere from $900 on the low end to $1600 or more on the high end depending the compensation package in question.

The next step in the comparison is to determine the additional value of the contract that’s being held out for. For example, let’s say you’re holding out for a contract that pays at least $31 per hour plus company provided housing. That’s $3 more per hour than the contract we used in the example above. Assuming that both contracts are for 36 hours per week for 13 weeks, the higher paying contract is worth $1404 ($3*468 hours) more than the lower paying contract over the course of the entire contract.  As you can see, missing just 1 to 2 weeks of work negates the added value of the higher paying contract.

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Remember, if you have stable work in between assignments, then these calculations aren’t as important as they are if you don’t have stable work in between assignments. Ultimately, the goal is to maximize your earning potential over the coarse of the year. Also, if you enjoy taking the holidays off, or have other vacations planned throughout the year, then these comparisons become very important. At the end of the year, you may find that you’ve been without work for 6 to 12 weeks and made far less money as the result of holding out for marginally higher paying contracts.

Advantages and disadvantages of bottom line requirements for travel nurses:

Advantages

Of course, maintaining bottom line requirements as a travel nurse isn’t all bad. It certainly makes working with recruiters and conducting your job search much easier. You could just tell the recruiters you work with to contact you only with assignments that meet your compensation requirements. Also, there shouldn’t be any communication breakdowns regarding compensation.  Moreover, you’ll definitely know your baseline compensation for each assignment which will make planning and budgeting easier.

Disadvantages

However, you’ll need to be careful that the recruiters you work with don’t take advantage of your bottom line requirements. Assignments may have the potential to pay more than your baseline but recruiters might offer you less knowing that they’re offer meets your standard requirements. Moreover, firm compensation requirements may result in the exclusion of some really great travel destinations that tend to pay lowish rates like Hawaii and San Diego.

Perhaps most importantly, sticking with bottom lines could potentially cost you large sums of money over the course of the year. Again, the goal is to ensure that you are consistently earning income.

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Of course, you don’t want to work for peanuts either. Therefore, you need a rock-solid negotiating strategy to ensure that you’re maximizing your bargaining power. For that, we highly recommend our free eBook on Travel Nursing Pay Negotiation. Find out why Epstein LaRue of Highway Hypodermics says, “Don’t negotiate your next contract without it!”