Travel Nursing Dos & Don'ts: Expert Tips from GHR's Peter Mecouch & Itilite's Anish Khadiya

I am Anish Khadiya, the Chief Business Officer of Itilite and your host for today. Itilite is a travel booking
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expense reimbursement and payments platform, our focus is on simplifying travel for healthcare providers as well
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as the organizations. We work with several Health Systems and staffing agencies to make travel easy and enjoyable
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and safe for the providers. In a webinar today, we look under the hood of travel
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nursing with an eminent voice from the industry before I get started, let
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I share some context about the state of the healthcare industry and travel nursing in
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particularly once their healthcare care systems emerged from the COVID pandemic and entered the new normal, many found
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that their staffing issues had only gotten worse. Healthcare professionals
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and nurses, in particular, experienced increased burnout from the prolonged Healthcare crisis. Many chose
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to switch roles or leave the profession together in 2023. Most health
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systems sought to prioritize workforce stability; this has continued into
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2024, with healthcare systems putting in increased effort to recruit and
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retain permanent nurses; however, talent shortages and
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turnover rates continue to persist, and hiring travel nurses remains a key
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strategy to fill open positions, this is more pronounced for hard-to-fill roles such as registered
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nurses, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, and mental health
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professionals in a tight talent market like today, hiring travel nurses can
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widen a health systems stent pool, providing more patient coverage and helping reduce burnout facility
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administrators understand that it may be easier to work with staffing agencies and MSPs to shuttle in
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qualified experienced nurses rather than endure the lengthy and costly cycle for
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recruiting onboarding and training perm nurses for the expected job growth for
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RN is 6% higher than average, but the supply of travel nursing
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jobs cannot be boiled down to one specific number. It depends on several
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factors such as facility need, geographic location, the specific role
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and so on. This brings us to an essential question for recruiters at the Healthcare
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systems or for Arn, looking to explore travel nursing, how do you identify the
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the right fit in a hire, what type of opportunities align with your qualifications, and
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aspirations to answer this and more part questions, I am thrilled to welcome one
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of the true Veterans of the nursing profession with 28 years of experience as a registered nurse and a background
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that spans from bedside care to corporate leadership. Please welcome Peter Mecouch, Chief Clinical and
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Compliance Officer at General Healthcare Peter, it's a pleasure to have
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you at the healthcare hon chos can you start by telling us a little bit about
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you and your journey till now sure thank you anise um I became a
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nurse in 1993, so I'm actually at 31 years of nursing. I did about 15 years of
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clinical nursing direct patient care, my areas of specialty were nephrology
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nursing and critical care, um. I both worked as an employed
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staff nurse and for a period of time worked as as an agency Staffing nurse um
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I did local agency Staffing, not travel agency um in the Greater Philadelphia
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Market moved um into nursing leadership and nursing management EV
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eventually into Hospital Administration and have made my way to GHR Healthcare
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in the last four years, moving into the Staffing industry um was
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a new role for me, not something that I would have ever imagined, even as soon
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as five years ago, would I imagine that I'm sitting here talking to you and and our listeners, um, being in charge of
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clinical and compliance for for GHR healthcare um and I have always
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loved the career I went to nursing school right out of high school so
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that made me a bit of a unicorn um um, and I knew when I was a sophomore in high
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a school that nursing school was what I wanted to pursue um. I do come from a family of nurses. My mom, my mom's sister
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and my mom's mother were all nurses, so I consider myself a third generation nurse within that side of the family um, and
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you know, I knew well ahead of time before nursing school what I was getting into because my mother and my aunt were
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more than happy to tell me what what nursing was going to be like when I got there
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so well then y,ou know I should correct myself. You have not just 31 years of
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nursing experience you have three generations of nursing experience behind you, yeah yeah, right, which brings
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me to my first question, um, you know you've had a long and distinguished
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career in nursing how have you seen the profile of a nurse EO over this
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period so I would I would the profile of a nurse and the profile of the
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profession, um, I think that they have
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they have symbiotically grown together, um. I think nursing as a
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profession, we have seen a lot more nurses with Advanced
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degrees, um, in the last 20 years, we have seen the push to see more
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Balor prepared nurses coming out of school working directly at the bedside
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in my own experience, I have seen nurses working still at the bedside with
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Masters and um phds or doctorate and nursing practice
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degrees, so I think that one the profession has pushed itself to
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become more strongly educated and that education to accolades that that
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go back to Collegiate degrees and advanced Collegiate degrees, I think that
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the industry or the profile of a nurse has become um as much technology and
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you know forward use of technology in care of patients as it as it has
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always been the Simple Touch you know of a human being providing care to an
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individual who's at their worst Point in their life so I think that I
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think that education professionalism that ties back to that advanced
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education um and the advanced learning that nurses are doing
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um I also think that nurses are focusing a lot on certifications they're focusing on
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certifications and and expressing their expertise in their different areas of
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nursing through those certifications, um whether that's y,ou know, a certification in the emergency room
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nursing or a certification in Critical Care Nursing um I think nurses are tying
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back their clinical expertise and putting a Capstone on that expertise by getting those those um nonacademic
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certifications but nonetheless rigorous certifications with x amount of hours
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worked in that area comprehensive exams that you know tie back to that
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certification and then ongoing education with continuing education
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requirements or repeating that examination that ties back to their
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certifications. Thirdly, I would say that there's been a lot of focus on the
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nursing realm and advanced practice, a lot of nurses um are coming into the
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field they're spending some time at the bedside and then they're going back to school to become nurse practitioners or
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certified registered nurse adst and they're entering the world
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of licensed providers um they are writing
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prescriptions they're seeing patients they're in the 50 states don't quote
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me exactly but I know that there's probably about 25 or more states that allow nurse practitioners to hang their
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own shingle out and practice, um, the other states are taking note of that, um
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some states are, you know, doing it specific to certain areas of nursing
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practice and others are loosening the amount of partnership that NPS need
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to have and oversight that they would need to have with, you know, a physician provider, which back, you know
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at the original outset of nurse practitioners, you could not practice ice without a physician provider you know
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being your exact, you know, your direct cohort in the practice that you were in, so I think that there's there's a lot
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that the profession has experienced in my 30 years and it's definitely a lot
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that we've experienced coming out of of my mother's generation of nursing and
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I think they're all great moves. They're all great things that are happening
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and I think that the fourth thing that I went add ties back to our conversation today I think that the mobility of
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nurses across the United States and internationally is marketly
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improved over years in the past because we have things like compact
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lure and the 30 two states that recognize uh compact lure and office
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offer compact lure which allows nurses to you know live and be licensed in the
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State of Florida but then work in the state of New Jersey the state of Georgia
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the state of, you know, any one of those 32 states, so um it, it's a significant
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Improvement uh in the recognition of our profession it's a significant Improvement in the uh mobility and um uh
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and and I lost the word there the mobility of nurses but the also the ability to pull nurses to higher areas
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of need you know we may have a region in the United States that has a much
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higher need for nurses, and that may be due to, you know, a crisis that may be
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due to seasonality issues, nurses are able to make those moves, and there is
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a there is a class of nurse out there that they're seeing the United States by traveling from state to state
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spending time and you know they're making a career of using their skills
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and their certifications and their lure to also see parts of the world and parts of
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the United States, they might not ever see if they stayed as a staff nurse, um, and I think that that's a great thing
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it's not something that I partook of when I was in my 20s and 30s I sometimes
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wish I had, but you know we have nurses who are professional travel
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nurses, and that's a wonderful thing not only for them and their lifestyle but it's a wonderful thing for the
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facilities that need them, um, and that they're willing to come in and support, you know in that, in that
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process, so some very interesting points you make. I think the last one you
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know the ability to go see the world. I remember when we were prepping uh for our
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discussion today you mentioned that you spent most of your career just you know
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just in the Philadelphia area, so yeah, you know, that adds a very
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different dimension to the role itself AB question is you know is around the
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hiring of nurses right now you mentioned nurses are now going for advanced
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degrees much more going for professional certifications as well
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how has this translated into what recruiters look for when they hire a
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nurse and has Co impacted this in any
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manner so uh the recruiters are the recruiters are going to be responding to
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what our clients are looking for you know our clients are going to be spelling out what their needs are based
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on level of care where those nurses need to have expertise they're also then going to
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spell out what do they expect of the nurses in terms of certifications in terms of um
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experience um many facilities, many clients want to see nurses that have you
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know a minimum of two years experience um at the level of care the nurse expects to work at so if I'm a if I'm an
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ICU nurse and I've been a nurse for a couple years working Med surge Telly and I just moved to the Intensive Care Unit
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you know, eight months ago, I might be able to go work a med Sur Telly contract, but I'm probably not
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going to be able to place myself as a as an ICU level nurse because they're going to want to see at least at least a year
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if not two years of that level of care experience from me and my
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profession um, I think that um, the recruiters are going to, you know
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they're going to ask to see, you know, solid resumés um, those resumés are going to
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have to spell out what you have been doing. If you are an experienced nurse, where have you been? How long were you
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working there, um, it's important for many of our clients, um to have certain
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background checks run and so we need to see from a from a nurse a solid resume
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that tells me how long you've been in this state and how long you've been in that state and who were you working for
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in that facility, that's also important, um, many nurses will say well, I worked at
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X Hospital for the last three months, you weren't employed by that
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hospital you were working for that hospital for ghr so ghr was your employer not the hospital so if we go to
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run a background check we call xh hospital and ex Hospital goes we don't even know who that nurse is because they
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have no record of their employment they were there as a contingent labor um uh
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contract, and ghr was really the employer of the last three months, so
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solid resumés and resumés that are up Tod date um it is it can be I would I
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would imagine painstakingly difficult to keep track of what's going on with your
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career when you make changes like that, and if you're an experienced travel nurse, um, and you're traveling to you
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know three or four different facilities maybe in a year or two years, um, you know
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keeping update keeping updates to your resume is something that's going to be important because that's going to be
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something that the clients are going going to want to know where have you been and what have you done um and then
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obviously, make sure that your certifications are not out of date, and that's simple things like your basic
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life support and your Advanced cardiac life support and your pediatric Advanced life support certificates up to date um
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are they going to expire during your current contract if I'm getting ready to sign a contract to start on you know the
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9th of September, I'm going to have trouble selling myself as a travel nurse
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if my if my uh BLS expires at the end of September and I don't have proof that
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I've got a class scheduled and I'm ready to go um those type of certifications are must haves um it's it's almost
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equivalent to your nursing license um nowadays with joint commission and
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Department of Health uh, in individual states having oversight facilities, must
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must know that you're going to remain compant with those expected um uh with
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with your license and with those expected uh uh
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certifications got it picking on a slightly different dimension of
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hiring you know I know there are different types of nurse roles but are
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there some common skills that you know irrespective of what specific uh you
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know faculty you may be a nurse in you know recruiters agencies and
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healthare systems assess you for specific skills. If you have to pick some you know skills, what would those
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be um, well, I mean obviously General General Nursing Care and general
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knowledge of nursing care of the patient um minimum understanding of um uh you
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know anatomy and physiology those type of things that we would have come out of nursing school having that we would have
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had to shown competency in by taking our boards and nursing unfortunately the the
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items that cross over from job to job or from Clinical role to clinical role are
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those basic entrylevel nursing practice items where where
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clients and recruiters are going to become more specific is tying back to your skill set and your
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experience um you know if I if I was an emergency room nurse 10 years ago
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and I clinically practice as an emergency room nurse, but I've been doing home care for the last eight
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years I'm not going to be somebody who can be placed in the emergency room my skill is not my skill set from the ER is
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not current, it's not up to date. I haven't been in the ER for eight or 10 years, so I'm I'm not going to be
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somebody who can say well, I worked in the ER, so I'll I'll go be a travel nurse in the ER that's not, you know, it's
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got to be current level of experience in that um in that level of care that you
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want to work, uh, and then, of course, certifications that tie back to that
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level of care um and uh relevant experience um there's no real I mean the
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basics of nursing is the basics of nursing what what really is going to be important is what is your your clinical
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competency: can you prove that clinical competency? There'll be an exam that you may be asked to take. You will, uh whether you
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know at that the level of care pharmacology um a lot of facilities now
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have mixed Telemetry units, so do you have a good understanding of basic dis
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rythmia uh and heart conduction interpretation um and can you you know
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can you prove that uh because we don't have a lot of freestanding singular Med
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surge facilities anymore or units anymore they're mixed Med surge Telemetry so I'd like to say there is
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more than just the basic nursing skill sets um but there isn't really because
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then you get into clinical Specialties and you have to show competency and recent time worked in those clinical uh
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settings got it. I think that's a great point. You know it happens to all of us. I
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you know I've been a generalist, right? Or you could say when I started my career, I was someone who could do
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everything, but as you know I',ve become more specialized in what I focus
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on you know my you know my employers past and present always look for
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relevance of my experience right those are, you know, in many ways, very simple
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Concepts, but they do carry over from profession to profession. The same is the cas
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nursing as as you just mentioned y now I know we are you know we are running a
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bit bit short on time but are there any certifications that you would recommend
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to uh, you know, nursing candidates today, you know, especially those who are looking to make a career in travel
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nursing and a FastTrack one at that. Um w,ell obviously, there's the
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there's the certifications that tie back to their just ability to provide direct patient care that's the basic life
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support the advanced cardiac life support I would say that many nurses need to be looking at their uh um nihss
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which is their stroke Stroke Scale certifications many hospitals in the United States are applying for and being
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garnered um Joint Commission certification in stroke care and many of
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those facilities tie um the idea that all of their nurses are going to be
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stroke certified, um I think that, you know, those are kind of the key
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certifications that you have to have to be fluid and functional to be able to go from facility to facility and keep those
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up to date and keep them in, you know, in real time, um if you have certifications
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that relate to your specialty, whether that's a CCRN or a CNN or a Cen
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certified emergency room nurse um uh, or do you have an OB specialty certification
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or a NICU certification. Those certifications are always good to have. I've always um desired to put
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that type of Capstone onto my career uh and on to the specialty that I've focused on. I am a previously certified
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uh nurse, um, I stopped practicing in that Clin clinical certification so I could
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not keep that certification because you have to be practicing, but you know those are always good things for nurses to
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consider um how they bolster their how they express really their expertise um
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and that's one of those ways that they can do that is is do those those Advance certifications uh related to their
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clinical specialty, all right, I think I have space
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for fitting in one final question um so so Peter you know as an industry veteran
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what would you know? What would your top three tips be for a budding nurse
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for a but for a budding travel nurse or for a budding nurse for a budding travel nurse for a budding travel nurse um one
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I would say be very comfortable with your clinical area of expertise in your
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clinical area of practice understand that um while the
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jobs are there um we are no longer working in Co and clients can be a lot
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more picky about the amount of experience that you have or the amount of experience that they're requesting of
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nurses, um, I would say that a an an a novice nurse who is less than two years
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of of clinical experience may not farewell as a traveling nurse um you may find jobs you
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may have a recruiter who says hey I've got a a client that you know uh wants you to
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come and you may you may get that job um the other thing that I would say is you
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need to be very comfortable with change, and you need to be very comfortable with
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being adaptable to different circumstances different clinical
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practices uh different uh EMR um in terms of how you're
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documenting uh different physician ideas and you know in particular if you're
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working in a surgical unit you know every surgeon has a different way that they want their their patients taken
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care of postoperatively, um so you need to be flexible, you need to have some
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adaptability um if if you're feeling uh at the at the least bit timid
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uh in your current nursing career and you're, you know, less than two years out of practice, maybe wait another year and get
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another year under your belt, um you know in, in our profession, we talk about no to
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expert, and while I don't think you need to be an expert to travel, you definitely
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don't want to go out and ,you know, attempt to travel as a novice nurse, um
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you want to make sure that you understand your lure uh one of the things that we in the industry run into
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a lot is nurses are applying for compact lure in their home States they're
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getting that compact lure, and then they're able to go and work elsewhere. Nurses are, unfortunately
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forgetting that when they move, they need to notify their primary state where they
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earned that license that compact license, or they were given that compact license, they have to notify that state in 60
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days that's the rules of the compact licensure and you know we frequently
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struggle with nurses who are coming to us and say well, I have a Florida compact license. Okay, well, where do you live
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what's your tax home where is your driver's license from from well it's from
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Georgia, well, I appreciate that Florida and Georgia are, you know, adjacent to
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each other, but you can't live and claim Georgia as your primary state of
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residence and work on a Florida compact license, you need to notify Georgia that
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you've moved and applied for your compact license there, and you need to notify Florida that you're no longer living
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there um so I mean that would be another thing that I think advice wise please
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under you know, please read the rules about your compact lure and understand
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it's a great vehicle for you and your profession. It's a great vehicle for our profession in terms of assisting our
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clients Across the Nation and placing nurses but your license is not
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transferable just because it's a compact license you have to have proof of
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residency, um, and I think the third would be, um you know
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be prepared to go through every single
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time you're going to do a new contract, be prepared to go through a bit of work
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you're going to need a background check run. You're probably going to have to do a drug screen of some kind in your
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your your agency and your recruiter is going to collect from you your driver's
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license your I9, all of your employment documentation needs to be filled out
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you're going to have to sign releases to run that background check and drug screen we're going to need you to go and
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get a physical depending upon when your last physical was done and so for those
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travel nurses that are new, um, you may not remember what it was like when you
28:44
were brought on board to the hospital, and you did all those things, but if you're going to be changing contracts
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and changing clients every three months or every six months you have to do those
28:56
items over and over again. Again, my suggestion is to create a file and have that file
29:02
ready have a cop a clean copy of your driver's license front and back passport front and back um put those items your
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BLS your ACLS cards with your expiration dates, put those into PDF format, and save
29:16
all of those PDFs in that file on your computer or maybe your phone you can you
29:22
can upload a lot of information to to different companies portals via your phone they are mobile compatible but
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save them as PDFs. They're easier to transfer as PDFs and keep that ready
29:35
to go because the more the more quickly you produce that
29:40
product the more quickly your recruiter can get you to
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work excellent points those and I, you know, while I'm not a nurse Ive been at
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you know, at the other end of some of these recruiter requests Pe,ter makes some very, very, uh you know, very, very
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useful and pertinent points, Peter. I have a bonus question, and this one is my special request. You mentioned that you
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know many facilities today look for at least a twoyear you know twoyear
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experience from a travel nurse in the relevant you know in the relevant
30:17
clinical Care Facility right or a clinical clinical care specialty now I'm a nurse that has about
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a Year's experience, right? Of course, I can keep working in that, you know, in that
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specialty for one more year and get this experience but is there you know is
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Is there another way for me to get more experience faster? Sure, uh, I mean, you can always
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look for, um you know if there's H other hospitals in your area, other systems, um
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you can always look to start perdm jobs you can always look to pick up roll
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where you know, maybe you're just picking up some extra shifts that are outside. It'll show on your resume, it'll show, uh
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some variability in your experience, it'll show that you've stretched yourself a little bit, um and some
31:12
adaptability because you're learning to work in hospital a and Hospital B, um
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even in the hospital f,ind out if there's not an opportunity for you to work off
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of your unit or in a like unit um in the facility um find out from your Staffing you know
31:30
your nurse manager or for your Staffing Department are there needs in another unit that are of of like level of care
31:39
um, you know, push yourself to get certifications that you might not need
31:45
today to do this job, but you want to go and start training and practicing, or you
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want to move to the next job you have to maybe there's certifications that you could get IV therapy or you know take
32:00
take some Advanced um uh arhythmia classes and and learn to do um you know
32:06
EKG interpretation better you know there are always things that you can do in the career that will make you a stronger
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candidate take a critical care course um many hospitals offer Critical Care courses get that Critical Care course
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under your belt, put that on your resume, let them you know let, any employer
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not just a travel agency and not just a client that's accepting Trav you from a travel agency any employer no hey as a
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nurse, I've done a lot to better myself. I've stretched Myself by going to work at hospital B, and I didn't spend all my
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time in this one unit on Hospital a um there's a lot of opportunity there to stretch yourself professionally and show
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that stretch as you fill out your resume and put in those details of the things that you've done um
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educationwise uh training wise uh certification wise
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Etc ,got it. I think that's, you know, that's what I like to call a growth hack
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uh and a very good one at that so for for our audience and especially nurses
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who are interested in becoming travel nurses, this is a great way for you to acquire more experience
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faster now uh, let me go over to audience questions. Peter Adam has an interesting
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one you know, given the nature of travel nursing, where you move from one
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assignment to the next every three or six months and you are constantly doing
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the certification and keeping up your you know licenses As you move from you
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know one state to the next how does a travel nurse keep aite you know remain
33:51
focused on their professional goals, right? I am not sure if many nurses have
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asked you this, but you know this was something that was, you know, that was floating in my head too right with so
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much change in your life every three or six months ,how do you remain centered if
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you're a travel nurse. Well, I, mean I, I'm gonna. I'm
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going to suggest to Adam and anybody else who has that question: what did you go into nursing for? What are we there
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for we're there for the patient we're there to provide for individual ual who are at the lowest point in their life um
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whether they've elected to do that, whether they had to elect to do it, whether it's, you know ,their body's
34:37
wearing out or they've done something to their body to wear it out they people in
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the hospital are probably at one of the lowest points in their lives and they need our care as nurses so you know
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recentering yourself in the profession, go back to why we are there as nurses
34:57
and that's the patient, um I would, I would say to that in terms of how do you
35:04
keep track of where you are and what you want to do if you're if you're operating as a
35:11
travel nurse and you're experiencing different um facilities and different
35:16
policies and different practices and different emrs and and different medical
35:22
ideas that doctors are throwing out or practicing, you're expanding yourself right there, um you're stretching
35:30
yourself right there, um, and so to me, in my profession it was my my goal was
35:36
always to expand myself like what more can I learn what more can I do to
35:42
improve my clinical practice and sure I could stay in the same unit for 10 years
35:48
and become an expert in that unit ,an expert uh, a senior member of that team
35:54
uh, without becoming a nursing leader, I'd just be a a 10-year veteran of that unit. Um, just the fact that you're out and
36:01
traveling, you're expanding your horizon. How do you Circle back? Well, keep a
36:07
calendar of expiration dates and and so on and so so forth reminder so that you
36:13
don't forget certifications are timing out or expiring um stay focused in one
36:20
area um, you know, if you really love Critical Care, get some critical care
36:25
experience under your belt and then go and do critical care. One of the things that happened to me as a nurse when I
36:31
was doing my agency work, I was asked by hospitals to go give different units
36:37
tries even as an agency nurse, so um I, did emergency room, I did ICU, I
36:46
did GI lab, I did Bron broncoscopy lab, I did calf lab, um you know, it led to me
36:54
being asked to do a lot of different things as an agency nurse because i' get pulled to another unit, and I'd say, okay
37:00
well, I'm comfortable going and managing X, Y, and Z, but I've not done, you know
37:06
these other items, and they'd say, great, well, we're going to teach you how to do that now that you're here, um, so I
37:11
expanded my my experience um which to me was part of
37:17
the focus of my career is how do I, um, how do I grow myself and challenge
37:22
myself uh to be doing different things in the in my nursing career so that was
37:28
one of my goals and I actually obtained it by being an agency nurse terrific Point once again uh I
37:36
think Peter you're a gold mine of insight um so I think one you know Molly's question I particularly like um
37:44
she's talking about how I'm a travel nurse. How do I manage finances right, especially given that you
37:51
know uh incomes income and expenses can vary from state to state, yeah you know, very
37:58
very real life question I'm not sure you know you have the time to answer this
38:03
but I it if you can sure I do I have time um first of all I I mean I don't
38:09
want to be the financial adviser but you know Molly find a budget find a budget
38:15
and learn to live on that budget um and and if you're traveling you are most
38:22
likely working with a uh split form of income you have your taxable income
38:29
which is your hourly wages um that you're receiving for work rendered and then you have um your
38:38
tax-free um reimbursement or your taxfree MLA which is your your duplicated expenses
38:46
so, if I keep a home here in the state of Pennsylvania where I live, but I'm going to travel to California as a travel
38:52
nurse, I'm going to duplicate expenses. Um, I'm going to have expenses that are
38:59
paying for my apartment or paying for my home in Cal in in Pennsylvania and then
39:04
I have to pay for food, room, and board in California while I work my contract, and
39:11
in some in many cases that is a non-packed um straight reimbursement
39:19
that comes to you from your employer um but you need to be making sure that your
39:26
a documented you you personally for your IRS situation you need to be documenting
39:32
your duplication of expenses, you need to keep a record of what those expenses were, whether you lived in an Airbnb or you
39:38
rented a hotel room, um what travel you had back and forth? Maybe you go and work
39:44
two weeks and you take a week off or you know you do your block schedule and you got a couple days off you're going to go
39:50
back to Pennsylvania, keep a record of that travel. Um budget's going to be the biggest one
39:57
um, you know, travel nurses and agency nurses do tend to make a little bit more
40:04
um hourly than staff nurses and the reason they do is because they're they
40:09
expect to be paid and they should be paid for the flexibility and the um
40:15
Readiness that they bring to hey I'm a nurse I'm going to come into your
40:20
the facility, I'm going to help you with your Staffing issue um, and I'm I'm not
40:26
employed by you, I'm not receiving your benefits. I don't have your pension or your 401k options so ,I'm going to
40:34
get paid a little bit more per hour to come in and be that you know kind of Johnny on the spot person that needs to
40:41
help you with your Staffing um stuff, so a budget's going to be important um re
40:48
Good Records clean records about your, you know, your duplication, how you've spent the money that is not taxed, how
40:56
you are saving money that is taxed and and what you're using that taxed income
41:02
for and um and how you're managing um you know those funds uh work
41:10
with your recruiters I mean if there is you know there
41:15
there sometimes there are options for, you know, uh temp to perm sometimes there's
41:22
options for uh facilities being willing to cover travel um it it all depends
41:28
upon what the client needs and what the client's willing to expend a,nd I'm not saying that every facility offers
41:34
travel coverage, but there are some out there that do, um, and it all depends upon your contract, so I would start with a
41:42
budget, I would start with an understanding of where you're going. I mean, if you're going to go work in
41:48
California, your cost of living to work in California for 3 months is going to
41:54
be much higher than my cost of living here in p pen Sylvania um and so uh you
42:00
know be prepared to you might be expending more money than you're actually being reimbursed
42:07
just because cost of living is difficult to measure and it's difficult to um some
42:14
of that may be put into your actual salary, your act, your actual hourly rate cost of living may be addressed there by
42:21
the client and not in your your um other funds um so
42:27
budget is going to be the biggest thing, um, keeping track of that and keeping track of your expenses, understanding
42:34
what they are and you may find secondarily there are websites out
42:40
there are resources out there. I can't give them all to you. I've not used them myself, but they exist when I travel
42:47
nurses have set up budgets, and they've set up online programs for you to track your expenses, Etc. um talk to your peers
42:55
in the industry, get on to chatline and ask them how they're managing their funds, um
43:00
there there are mechanisms out there to help you keep track and and keep good
43:06
track of your expenses and set those budgets that you need to set when you're
43:11
traveling all right uh with that uh audience we come to the end of our webinar today I think uh if you are a
43:20
travel nurse I'm sure you've you know you've gotten you know you've got at least one Insight a minute right and and
43:27
you know I can ,I can truly say, Peter, this has been one of the most insightful conversations I've had on the healthcare
43:34
honchos so on behalf of our audience andite thank you very much for taking
43:40
time out and giving us these wonderful insights travel nurses and recruiters I
43:47
hope you've you you know you've got some very interesting points from our
43:52
conversation today and very soon we'll come back to you with a fresh
43:57
episode of the healthcare honos also don't forget to catch us on YouTube so
44:03
we'll you know we'll be putting up some of the you know we'll put up the full recording on YouTube but also put up
44:10
some of the shorter Clips, um, you know, very valuable Insight from Peter in the
44:15
form of YouTube shorts, so do uh check out our YouTube channel and uh and look
44:21
us up, thank you, thank you once again. You've been a wonderful and patient audience. Have a great rest of the day
44:29
thanks everybody thanks Peter thank you everyone.