If You've Got the Money, Honey, I've Got the Time.

Everyday you get out in the same rush hour traffic. You see the same people at work, and you see the same patients and the same scenery and pretty soon there is a rut in the roads and health care facility where you work with your name on it. It's worn there by you doing the same thing day after day.

For some people, routine is a blessing. But for others, get out the prozac. If you are among the latter, you may be ripe for working as a traveling health care worker. There are literally dozens and dozens of staffing agencies for doctors, nurses, therapists - both occupational and physical, and therapy assistants as well as in almost every area of health care.

I am not going to recommend one over the other. This series of entries will help guide you in finding, and choosing one that is a fit with you.
As a traveler, you will work for a rehabilatation facility of some kind for about 13 weeks, sometimes longer. Then you can move on to another place in another city or even another state - all on someone else's dime.

Typically, the staffing agency finds you a place to live and makes sure it is stocked with everything you need to live pleasantly. Depending upon where you take an assignment, you may get a nice one bedroom apartment close to where you will be working. Or it may be an extended stay hotel with a kitchenette. A lot of it will depend on whether you are alone or traveling with a spouse. (Wait until I get into the benefits of traveling with a spouse who is also a health care worker. You can really bring in some bucks!)

And the pay is typically better than if you hired on permanently at a facility, but the benefits you get at some places may not be as good. If that is important to you, the intangible benefits that you don't see in your paycheck, then you need to ask questions of the staffing agencies, because many of them have more benefits than others.

But I will tell you this, what a staffing agency gives you in one area, they typically take away in another. For example, when you sign on with a staffing agency and go to work for a health care facility, the staffing agency pays you, not the facility. So if you sign on with an agency that offers great benefits, like paid medical and car allowance and per diems, they will usually offer you a smaller hourly pay.

I can't stress enough how important it is to compare what the various agencies offer. Some are great and others will take you to the cleaners, while making it sound like they are doing you a favor.

But first, how do you go about finding an agency? The first step is to go to a search engine like, Google, or Yahoo or MSN and type in "traveling health care jobs." One of the best sites showing job availability is Absolute Health Care found at www.healthjobsusa.com.

What's one big drawback to being a traveling healthcare worker? Medical coverage may be slim to none. Everyone knows adequate health plans are expensive, and many companies that were giving it to their employees as part of their benefits have begun to ask them to chip in some money by reducing their pay.

And that's how we get into the $3,000 mis-step my wife took in Sarasota, FL not too long ago.

I know I said I would get into it in this entry, but I think I will save it for next time. Right now you have enough on your plate to digest.

Happy trails 'til next time.