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13 Pros and Cons of Being a Travel Nurse

So, if you have found yourself here, then you must be considering a career as a travel nurse. For starters, having a job as a travel nurse will enable you to see the country and all that it has to offer. This may sound like a dream to some people, but as with any job, you will find pros and cons, and travel nursing is no different. Mapping out the pros and cons of being a travel nurse can be a tedious endeavor, but rest assured I am here to help you out with that feat. If you keep reading below, you will find the top 13 pros and cons of being a travel nurse. This article will surely help you decide if this is the right career choice for you.

TOP CONS OF BEING A TRAVEL NURSE

1. you will always find yourself in an unfamiliar environment., 2. you will always be the new guy., 3. varying pay rates, 4. what do you do when your contract has ended, 5. not the best work assignments, 6. license issues, 7. floating, 8. your contract can be canceled., 9. you may not have your dream schedule., 10. you may become homesick., 11. where are you going to live, 12. your taxes could be a nightmare., 13. you may not have paid time off., top pros of being a travel nurse, 1. great pay., 2. you will have a tax-free living stipend., 3. you get the chance to travel., 4. you will make new friends., 5. you can avoid all the politics at work., 6. you will gain experience., 7. flexibility, 8. you can try before you dive all in., 9. travel nursing can be a networking event., 10. you can choose your adventure., 11. you will learn life skills., 12. job security, 13. reimbursement, the bottomline.

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What is a Home Health Nurse?

We all know the old saying, “Home is where the heart is,” and this couldn’t be truer for home health care nurses. Simply put, home health nurses provide one-on-one care to patients in their homes. The care that a home health nurse provides can vary greatly, and home health nurse responsibilities can also change regularly depending on the patient receiving the care. A day can include everything from administering antibiotics via IV to assisting a patient with their ventilator. 

According to the Visiting Nurse Associations of America (VNAA), a 501(c)(3) organization that supports, promotes, and advocates for the role of mission-driven home-based care providers including home health, hospice, and palliative care, the home health segment of the health care industry is expected to grow more than 70 percent in the next few years—from approximately $80 billion today to $137 billion by 2020. When surveyed, 87 percent of America’s seniors say they want to stay in their own home as they age and would prefer to receive medical care at home when possible.

The popularity of this “aging in place” trend and the growing home health care population will translate into more and more opportunities for home health care nurses. 

Home health nursing encompasses many different skill sets and patient populations. Home health nurses can also include the following specialties:

• Pediatric home health nurse
• Home health travel nurse
• Palliative care nurse
• Hospice nurse

A Day in the Life of a Home Health Nurse: No Two Days are the Same

Many potential home health nurses are wondering: what does a home health nurse do? What does a typical workday look like? 

Home health nurse responsibilities are very broad and involve working independently to care for patients. Home health nurses perform hands-on care and also handle of a lot of paperwork and administrative duties. They will check vital signs, give medications, evaluate the home situation, complete charting and so much more. But each day can be very different, just as every patient is different!

As a home health nurse, you can expect to work independently the majority of your time. Of course, you will interact with your patients and their families, but for the most part, you will be charged with making decisions and administering your care independently. Depending on the care setting or patient acuity, you may occasionally work on a team with another nurse or physician. 

Why Travel as a Home Health Nurse 

Getting started as a home health travel nurse is super easy, thanks to Travelnursing.com. There are SO many perks that come with home health travel nursing. One of our favorite perks is the great pay. Travel nurses can earn up to 15% more than regular staff nurses. And this is in addition to the other benefits that come with a career as a home health travel nurse. 

In addition to getting medical, dental and life insurance, most home health travel nurse positions also offer free housing, reimbursements that you don’t have to pay tax on, and the ability to travel with your family, spouse and/or pets! 

Do you want to learn more about becoming a home health travel nurse? Click here .

Read More About Home Health Travel Nursing Salary and Requirements from the link below.

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What to know about home health travel nursing.

Nurses specializing in home healthcare have a unique window into patient lives. And while it is rewarding to take care of your neighbors, there are also upsides to taking this type of job on the road. Here’s how home health travel nursing works, and what to consider before pursuing a home health travel nursing assignment with RNnetwork.

What is home health nursing? 

Rather than working in a hospital setting, home health nurses provide care directly in a patient’s home. The patient populations a home health nurse can work with vary — patients can be elderly, disabled, or have a critical illness. Or they may be in recovery from a major surgery, illness, or accident.

A home health nurse’s day-to-day responsibilities range from monitoring vital signs, wounds, or injuries to observing and recording behavioral changes. Home health nurses can be strong advocates for a patient since they often witness even subtle shifts in their habits. They might be the first to observe new eating patterns, how stable a patient’s mood is, or the results of any tests administered.

This means that skills in assessment and observation, wound care, injection administration, tubal feeding, IV monitoring, and catheter insertion and monitoring are essential to be a successful home health nurse. 

RELATED: Tips for working with home health patients

How does home health travel nursing differ from other types of travel nursing?

Generally speaking, home health travel nursing calls for nurses that are more independent and self-reliant than those you might find in a clinical setting. This is because many home health travel nurses operate on their own rather than as part of a team.

Jen Newman, senior recruiter at RNnetwork, put it this way: “The biggest thing is that home health nurses are completely independent. If you’re working on the acute side, you’re going to a hospital every day. You have everybody there with you. You can just go and grab another nurse and be like, ‘Hey, can you help me in room four?’ Home health nurses can’t do that.”

Nurses that enjoy one-on-one patient interaction, feel comfortable making decisions, and like working independently will find home health travel nursing positions particularly appealing. 

Benefits of traveling as a home health nurse

The benefits of travel nursing are numerous, but there are some special perks available to home health travel nurses that sweeten the deal.

Weekly pay with a guarantee of hours

Most contracts for home health travel nurses include a guarantee of hours, which can be a huge benefit. Because many home health nurses work PRN and are at risk of a lower patient census impacting their earnings, this arrangement takes a significant challenge out of the equation for financial planning.

Jen says, “If a PRN home health nurse’s patient census falls off — like, let’s just say they have a lot of patients discharged — they’re not going to get that many visits during the week. Since many are paid per visit, that can really affect your paycheck if your company doesn’t have the patient census there.”

Home health travel nurses can instead enjoy frequent, reliable pay that isn’t dependent on a variable patient census.

Good — and rising — compensation

Many organizations pay top dollar to fill empty positions for home health travel nurses. This can mean more cash in your pockets for fewer hours of work than in more traditional roles. 

Even better, Jen has observed increased pay for those in these positions since the pandemic, which isn’t the case for all types of travel nurses. She says that some home health travel nurse positions are earning 50% more than they were before the pandemic.

Competitive pay rates paired with the guaranteed hours outlined above make for an unbeatable combination.

Schedule and location flexibility

Being a travel nurse means becoming a free agent in the workforce. This flexibility allows you to find work close to the places that suit you and your family, such as near grandparents or where your spouse’s job takes them. You can also select placements that fit your schedule or opt for assignments in destinations that intrigue or excite you . 

You can even choose placements close to home and still reap many of the benefits that travel nursing offers.

RELATED: Top 5 highest-paying states for nurses

Meaningful work

More than anything, home health travel nursing will give you ample opportunity to flex your care muscles and have a positive impact on the lives of your patients . One-on-one interactions will afford you the chance to learn more about the community where you work and get to know it better.

Current demand for home health nursing

Home health nursing demand is steady, with ample job openings in various markets. This is in response to a variety of factors, including new healthcare norms from patients, providers, and facilities alike.

“The market is shifting towards being more like a home health market for travel contracts versus hospital acute because the hospitals are relying on [Medicare] funding,” Jen says.

How to become a home health travel nurse

RNnetwork can help interested nurses find home health travel assignments, but applicants must meet certain requirements .

Generally speaking, home health nurses who become travelers have already done home health nursing in a non-travel setting. 

Here are some other requirements for working a home health travel assignment with RNnetwork: 

• Must have at least one full year of experience as a home health nurse in the last three years
• Must have experience working as a home health nurse with geriatric patients on Medicare
• Must be familiar with Medicare documentation (OASIS) and comfortable conducting admissions within the system

Unfortunately, pediatric home care doesn’t meet these requirements because nearly all RNnetwork home health travel nursing placements will be with older patients.

Home health nurses can benefit from travel nursing

Independent work, competitive and reliable compensation, travel opportunities, and a flexible schedule — there are a lot of benefits associated with home health travel nursing.

If you’re interested in taking your home health career on the road, give us a call at (561) 862-0011 to speak with a consultant or view today’s home health job opportunities below.

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About the author

Alisa Tank is a content specialist at CHG Healthcare. She is passionate about making a difference in the lives of others. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, road trips, and exploring Utah’s desert landscapes.

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Travel nurses' gold rush is over. Now, some are joining other nurses in leaving the profession altogether.

Working as a travel nurse in the early days of the Covid pandemic was emotionally exhausting for Reese Brown — she was forced to leave her young daughter with her family as she moved from one gig to the next, and she watched too many of her intensive care patients die.

“It was a lot of loneliness,” Brown, 30, said. “I’m a single mom, I just wanted to have my daughter, her hugs, and see her face and not just through FaceTime.”

But the money was too good to say no. In July 2020, she had started earning $5,000 or more a week, almost triple her pre-pandemic pay. That was the year the money was so enticing that thousands of hospital staffers quit their jobs and hit the road as travel nurses as the pandemic raged. 

Two years later, the gold rush is over. Brown is home in Louisiana with her daughter and turning down work. The highest paid travel gigs she’s offered are $2,200 weekly, a rate that would have thrilled her pre-pandemic. But after two "traumatic" years of tending to Covid patients, she said, it doesn’t feel worth it.

“I think it’s disgusting because we went from being praised to literally, two years later, our rates dropped,” she said. “People are still sick, and people are still dying.”

The drop in pay doesn’t mean, however, that travel nurses are going to head back to staff jobs. The short-lived travel nurse boom was a temporary fix for a long-term decline in the profession that predates the pandemic. According to a report from McKinsey & Co., the United States may see a shortage of up to 450,000 registered nurses within three years barring aggressive action by health care providers and the government to recruit new people. Nurses are quitting, and hospitals are struggling to field enough staff to cover shifts. 

Nine nurses around the country, including Brown, told NBC News they are considering alternate career paths, studying for advanced degrees or exiting the profession altogether. 

“We’re burned out, tired nurses working for $2,200 a week,” Brown said. People are leaving the field, she said, “because there’s no point in staying in nursing if we’re expendable.”

$124.96 an hour

Travel nursing seems to have started as a profession, industry experts say, in the late 1970s in New Orleans, where hospitals needed to add temporary staff to care for sick tourists during Mardi Gras. In the 1980s and the 1990s, travel nurses were often covering for staff nurses who were on maternity leave, meaning that 13-week contracts become common. 

By 2000, over a hundred agencies provided travel contracts, a number that quadrupled by the end of the decade. It had become a lucrative business for the agencies, given the generous commissions that hospitals pay them.  A fee of 40 percent  on top of the nurse’s contracted salary is not unheard of, according to a spokesperson for the  American Health Care Association , which represents long-term care providers. 

Just before the pandemic, in January 2020, there were about 50,000 travel nurses in the U.S., or about 1.5 percent of the nation's registered nurses, according to Timothy Landhuis, vice president of research at Staffing Industry Analysts, an industry research firm. That pool doubled in size to at least 100,000 as Covid spread, and he says the actual number at the peak of the pandemic may have far exceeded that estimate.

By 2021, travel nurses were earning an average of $124.96 an hour, according to the research firm — three times the hourly rate of staff nurses, according to federal statistics. 

That year, according to the 2022 National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report from Nursing Solutions Inc., a nurse recruiting firm, the travel pay available to registered nurses contributed to 2.47% of them leaving hospital staff jobs.

But then, as the rate of deaths and hospitalizations from Covid waned, the demand for travel nurses fell hard, according to industry statistics, as did the pay.

Demand dropped 42 percent from January to July this year, according to Aya Healthcare, one of the largest staffing firms in the country. 

That doesn’t mean the travel nurses are going back to staff jobs.

Brown said she’s now thinking about leaving the nursing field altogether and has started her own business. Natalie Smith of Michigan, who became a travel nurse during the pandemic, says she intends to pursue an advanced degree in nursing but possibly outside of bedside nursing.

Pamela Esmond of northern Illinois, who also became a travel nurse during the pandemic, said she’ll keep working as a travel nurse, but only because she needs the money to retire by 65. She’s now 59. 

“The reality is they don’t pay staff nurses enough, and if they would pay staff nurses enough, we wouldn’t have this problem,” she said. “I would love to go back to staff nursing, but on my staff job, I would never be able to retire.” 

The coronavirus exacerbated issues that were already driving health care workers out of their professions, Landhuis said. “A nursing shortage was on the horizon before the pandemic,” he said.

According to this year’s Nursing Solutions staffing report, nurses are exiting the bedside at “an alarming rate” because of rising patient ratios, and their own fatigue and burnout. The average hospital has turned over 100.5% of its workforce in the past five years, according to the report, and the annual turnover rate has now hit 25.9%, exceeding every previous survey. 

There are now more than 203,000 open registered nurse positions nationwide, more than twice the number just before the pandemic in January 2020, according to Aya Healthcare.

An obvious short-term solution would be to keep using travel nurses. Even with salaries falling, however, the cost of hiring them is punishing.

LaNelle Weems, executive director of Mississippi Hospital Association’s Center for Quality and Workforce, said hospitals can’t keep spending like they did during the peak of the pandemic.

“Hospitals cannot sustain paying these exorbitant labor costs,” Weems said. “One nuance that I want to make sure you understand is that  what a travel agency charges the hospitals  is not what is paid to the nurse.”

Ultimately, it’s the patients who will suffer from the shortage of nurses, whether they are staff or gig workers. 

“Each patient added to a hospital nurse’s workload is associated with a 7%-12% increase in hospital mortality,” said Linda Aiken, founding director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research.

Nurses across the country told NBC News that they chose the profession because they cared about patient safety and wanted to be at the bedside in the first line of care. 

“People say it’s burnout but it’s not,” Esmond said about why nurses are quitting. “It’s the moral injury of watching patients not being taken care of on a day-to-day basis. You just can’t take it anymore.”

Jean Lee is an associate reporter with NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team in Los Angeles. She previously reported for the NBC News consumer investigative unit.