Medical Staffing Firm Took Out Money Not Specified In Contract
From time to time medical travelers will switch staffing companies for various reasons. Sometimes it's for better pay and benefits. Sometimes it's because they changed recruiters on you and you have a personality conflict with your new contact. There can be a lot of reasons.
The Traveler, my wife, has changed companies because her last staffing company LIED to her. That hasn't happened before. We've had some that lied to us about the amount they could pay, but that was business on their part and she agreed before hand to the contract. We've had one that kept lying about not being able to find another assignment when in fact they were dropping their travel division and didn't want to tell my wife - until the last day of her contract.
Here's a tip. If everyone in the company you have dealt with is suddenly not there anymore, something is wrong. What can I say. We were new to traveling.
Frequently, a company may offer you hourly pay, plus per diem (usually based on the rate for a particular area you are in) and paid housing or a housing stipend. The stipend, theoretically, is what their maximum allowable rate for housing in a particular area. Heavy tourist areas will usually have higher housing costs.
A lot of health workers want to do their travel time at the beach. We did, and still do. But because housing may be more costly in areas where housing is at a premium, your housing cost may be higher, but your hourly pay may be reduced to cover the increased costs.
We came to Naples from Pensacola. We had heard it was costly to live here and that it was the Palm Beach of West Florida Coast. They were right. But we wanted a warm winter for a change.
Now a recruiter, for example, may tell you they can pay you $35 an hour and depending upon your medical specialty - i.e. whether you are a nurse, therapist or therapist assistant, you may get more or less. But what a medical staffing company may not immediately explain is that the $35 an hour is the total costs including housing and per diem.
For example, you may get $20 an hour for hourly pay, $10 an hour for housing and $5 an hour for per diem. By the way, you only get the per diem if you maintain a home or apartment that is more than 50 miles away from where your assignment is and only if the company offers this
benefit. Many don't.
So if you go to an area with high housing costs, a staffing company may tell you that you will have to take an hourly pay cut to help offset the cost of housing. You will still be paid the $35 an hour, it's just that some of the money allocated for hourly pay will go to housing. You may, for example, get $15 an hour instead of the $20 you received at the prior assignment, and $15 an hour going toward housing and $5 per hour for per diem.
Fine. The traveler understood that. This is something a company will frequently do. She was also told that what funds that were not spent on housing would go back into her pay. This is a little unusual from our previous experience with other staffing companies.
As a result, to come to Naples, FL., the Traveler took a $7 an hour pay cut, but she thought she would make it up by taking low cost housing and not renting furniture. This was a cut in pay of more than $1,100 a month.
Unless you're Microsoft founder Bill Gates, that's a lot of money. We let the staffing company get the apartment. Previously we had taken the stipend. They were allowing $2,200 for housing in Naples. That's about right for luxury accommodations. But we asked for something less costly - because she was told by her recruiter that funds not spent in housing would go back into her paycheck.
Rented furniture was going cost another $188 per month. We turned it down and decided to buy some used furniture from a thrift store. For about $100 we got enough fairly nice furniture to furnish a one-bedroom apartment. Again, the saved money was supposed to go into her pocket.
All in all, we had housing expenses down to less than $1200 a month by our calculations. This includes apartment rental, utilities and cable.
When the Traveler got her first paycheck it was much lower than she expected. When she got a look at her company pay receipts, she had a lot of questions for the company.
(To find out the name of this medical staffing company and the result of our pay dispute, read the next entry coming soon.)
