So, what exactly does a typical traveling physical therapy contract look like? From my experience, I made a higher wage. There can be some unique drawbacks to a typical traveling physical therapy job.
While these positions may pay a reasonable rate, there is an innate need for traveling physical therapists to live an almost nomadic lifestyle; considering the fact that contracts last a maximum of three months. We recently spoke with a traveling physical therapist in the Bay Area who is also a parent to small children. Knowing that she needed the money to sustain their life in the Bay Area, she was forced to make the move.
It was an inopportune time to leave her children behind, as she missed valuable time with them during their summer break. One of the most appealing reasons for becoming a traveling PT is the financial opportunity. Because many of these assignments require therapists to relocate to more rural, underserved areas, financial incentives are often offered in return.
Traveling physical therapy allows for underserved or understaffed markets to pull in more PT resources. Traveling PTs can feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride serving patients who might not have found the quality of care that they can offer otherwise. This, however, can also lead to a potential drawback that we will cover next.
Because physical therapists are typically needed in underserved areas, most traveling PTs find themselves in rural and remote locations. In the off chance that an exciting, urban location opens up, the chances of landing the job before someone else is slim. Some might enjoy living in these types of locations, while others might feel a bit secluded.
Due to the nature of traveling PT jobs, financial incentives are typically offered to encourage PTs to accept certain assignments. Those incentives typically come in the form of higher hourly rates, bonuses, housing subsidies, or living fees. In general, you can expect to make a bit more money in a traveling position versus a traditional physical therapy job. Aside from the more obvious drawbacks of constantly uprooting your life, there are also more nuanced barriers to overcome.
She had an apartment in San Francisco and knew if she let go of her lease, she would only come home to find sky high rent. As you can see, there are many advantages and disadvantages associated with becoming a traveling physical therapist—but what if you could enjoy all the pros without having to deal with any of the cons?
With Luna, you can enjoy all of the flexibilities that traveling physical therapy has to offer without needing to uproot your life every few months. You dictate your own schedule and get to work with a wide range of patients, all within driving distance of your home base.
Also, if you work with multiple recruiters throughout the year, you will have multiple W-2s in multiple states. When you have accepted an offer, tell the other recruiters and your current employer immediately. Everyone needs to be on the same page as soon as possible. I ended up wasting their time telling them that I had not taken a position. In the advantages and disadvantages sections above, I said that housing was a disadvantage to travel PT.
As a traveling physical therapist, you will have a permanent residence and a temporary residence. One of the trickier parts of travel physical therapy is finding a place to live in your temporary locale.
Most apartments and condos do not offer short-term leases, which makes your job a little more challenging. That apartment with the pool and the fitness center might be unavailable. If the town you work in only has 1, people, how do you expect to find any place to live? You might have to drive miles just to get to work. But even small towns have rooms to rent, and might even have temporary housing. My first assignment was in a border town, called Del Rio, Texas. It only has 40, people, but I contacted a local realtor, who owned a quadplex a home with four separate apartments near my office.
She offered a month-to-month lease and it was completely furnished for an affordable price. This in Del Rio, Texas! One thing you will have to decide is whether you want to live alone or you want to live with roommates like you did in grad school. As with most other parts of being a travel physical therapist, there are advantages and disadvantages of both. If you absolutely must have your own place, then here my recommendations for finding an apartment. As you can see, you could be spending a large chunk of your paycheck on toiletries and household items.
If you rented a home, someone else could provide it. You can take most of this with you when you move but you want to move with as little as possible. Every city has one. A living room could cost even more. The point is, living alone as a traveler can get expensive. Your choice will depend on several factors. If you have lived with others in the past, then renting a room will not be a problem.
If personal space is a sine qua non of your life, then you will have to find your own place. If you want to minimize your commute, then you will want to choose the place that minimizes your commute. If you want to save as much as possible, then rent a room. I did this once and the contract got terminated after a month. It was money down the drain. Do not sign a lease longer than one month.
I learned the hard way. You will not. You want to know where everything is, how long your commute is, and what the good neighborhoods are. Having completed four or five contracts, I can tell you this is your best option. Another advantage is that you can ask your co-workers if they have an extra room, or if they know someone who has an extra room.
Even in this day and age of the internet, some of the best deals are found through word-of-mouth. Finally, if you give yourself a week to stay in a hotel, you will feel less pressure and anxiety when you move to the new location.
Staying in a hotel gives you time. At this point, you are ready for your assignment. Starting a new travel PT assignment can produce some anxiety.
If you have experience as a traveler, you will adapt faster. Some companies offer training even for travelers. My first assignment was a great first assignment because my employer sent me to Oklahoma City for five full days of training on how to use the EMR, how to write notes, how to manipulate the schedule, and how to use equipment.
Most employers will not do this. I shadowed another PT for three or four visits and then I started seeing my patients. During the interview, you want to ask about training see the "interviewing as a travel physical therapist" section above and see if the employer provides any.
If they do provide training, have a notebook and a pen and write down everything they say. A week before the assignment starts, you want to make sure everything is lined up and ready. Make sure you have completed all your tests, have gotten all your vaccinations, and have your original PT license not a copy with you. Contact your recruiter before the assignment starts and ask him or her if you need to do anything else.
If there is a problem with the documentation, somebody should alert you. Keep a list of common mistakes you make and double-check every note. Documentation might be the hardest part of any new assignment, not the treatments or the examinations. Each employer has a unique process, and no two EMRs are the same. Some employers are more straightforward than others. Some require more steps than others. Some employers have an EMR, but also have several forms that you need to fill out.
Keep a checklist of every step, and before you submit each note, make sure you have completed everything. It takes an extra minute to make sure everything is correct. This should be a question during the interview see the "interviewing as a travel physical therapist" section above. Having PTAs has pros and cons. The pro is that you can focus on evals. Another con is that you have to constantly coordinate with the PTA. This becomes more challenging during home health than it does in other settings, where you and the PTA work in the same physical location.
When the assignment is over, you want to have at least one good reference. Keep that in mind. One advantage of traveling physical therapy is that you will soon have many references on your resume.
Before I started traveling, I was concerned about mentorship. Because I had never worked alone, naturally I was apprehensive. I thought expectations would be higher for a traveling physical therapist. Your assignment will probably require 40 hours of work, like most positions.
I have not found that traveling physical therapy assignments are any more demanding than other positions. As for mentorship, it would be nice to have a mentor. If you have the internet, you have a mentor. If you know how to use LinkedIn, you should be able to find mentors in your field. Plus, you are going to learn a lot on the job. Keep a notebook, make a list of your mistakes, make a list of things you need to improve, and make a commitment to become better each day.
Become friends with your co-workers on day one. You need people you can rely on in case you need help. Getting along with your temporary colleagues will make your assignment much more enjoyable. Everywhere you go, you will meet new people as a travel PT. We often hear gross generalizations about people on the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, and South, but there are more differences between people in one area than differences between people in two different areas.
Go to bake sales, volunteer events, happy hours, meetings etc. Ask them questions, be friendly, and let them know that you like being there. Strangers have everything you want and need. You want your employers to be sad when you leave. If you get a job offer or an extension offer, take it as a compliment. When you leave, you should find at least one person to recommend you or be your reference for future positions.
To summarize, you want to exceed expectations about both being a new grad and being a travel PT. Employers have shared traveling physical therapy horror stories with me, and I imagine they hesitate to hire travel PTs. They only hire them when the cost of having an open position exceeds the cost of hiring a traveler. You can learn wherever you are. Be intentional and pay attention. You only improve when you recognize a mistake and then take deliberate action to correct it.
Pay attention to the skills you need to hone. Notice where you need to improve and where you need to make mistakes. In one position, I was constantly getting feedback about my notes. It was annoying at the time because it took an hour to fix and correct them, but as a new grad this was invaluable feedback.
Today I write better notes. Imagine being in a small town with no internet connection and maybe a few TV channels. No matter where you are, you can be contributing to the profession and learning new skills. The internet has made location far less relevant than it used to be in the past. At some point, you will have to decide whether to stay where you are or go to another assignment. Like everything in travel, there are pros and cons. Your decision will depend on what you value the most.
In the end, it depends on what your priorities are. If you absolutely want to see certain states or cities, then keep moving. But understand that moving has disadvantages. With travel PT, everything must be considered a trade-off.
Accept the trade-offs. At some point as a traveling physical therapist, you will want to stop traveling and seek stability. That could be during your first assignment or your tenth assignment. Some people travel for one assignment, others enjoy travel PT for years. Again, it all depends on what your priorities are. If you have an ambitious itinerary, then you will travel for years.
Maybe your goal is to travel to find a spouse, and then settle. They settled in the place where they met and they never left. Both cities are trying to become world healthcare centers. They have built state-of-the-art facilities to attract talent from around the world. As I write this book, neither I, nor my recruiters, have any information about working in the Middle East. I imagine they would not hesitate to hire an American-trained physical therapist. Nobody travels forever.
One travel PT who replaced me in one of my positions had been traveling for six years, and had been taking six-month contracts in the Pacific Northwest. As I said before, taking six-month contracts could be the best of both worlds: more stability while making the same pay as a traveler. You can negotiate more, and maybe a little less. Some employers might hesitate to do this because they would have to pay for a travel PT for 26 weeks.
They use travel PTs as a stop-gap, or a temporary solution, to their staffing needs. They only want you there as long as necessary. Some employers know that attracting permanent workers is almost impossible, and would be glad to fill a position for 26 weeks. One additional advantage of the week contract is that the recruiter might offer more pay in exchange for the longer contract. Obviously the only downside is that you will be in one place for 26 weeks.
If you have other places to see, then you will not want to stay for 26 weeks for a travel PT contract. Also, if the job turns out to be miserable, 26 weeks will be a long contract, and you will wish that you had negotiated 13 weeks. But even 26 weeks is not a long time, and people have suffered worse jobs for longer periods of time.
Another option is to take week contracts at first, see as many places as possible, and then start taking week contracts 13, 20, and 26 weeks are not the only options. You can negotiate any number of weeks. In a few years, you could easily visit 10 different locations. The world is a large place, and you could travel for a lifetime and still never see the vast majority of the world. One deterrent to taking a permanent job going perm is the pay cut.
I get offers every week for permanent jobs. Not all permanent jobs pay pennies. Remember, you will have to pay higher taxes with these jobs. If you take a permanent job, you can also work at another facility on the weekends to supplement your income. In fact, you could make more in that case. In fact, the difference could almost be double. Claim: The only jobs for traveling physical therapists are home health and SNFs.
The idea exists that travel physical therapists are only needed in rural SNFs and home health agencies. You can work in any setting, but you have to be flexible with location. But every time I interview for a new position, I get offers in positions in a variety of settings and locations. The job you want might not be in location you want, and the location you want might have the job you want.
Or maybe the recruiter you like more is offering a job that pays less or is offering a position that has too many disadvantages. Hard choices will have to be made. If setting is the most important factor in your decision, then tell that to your recruiters. Be flexible with location.
Finding your dream job in your dream location in your dream setting might not be possible. You might have to work a few years to get that position.
Give yourself something to look forward to. The bottom line is you can work in every setting you want in as little as 18 months. You can work in a different setting every three months and you will be a versatile PT!
Instead of developing expertise in one setting, you will have a little bit experience in every setting. You will learn a lot, and you will figure out where you want to work when you eventually stop traveling to settle down. Truth: On average this is true, but lucrative contracts can be found almost anywhere.
I wrote earlier that if money is your most important factor, then consider working as a traveling physical therapist in California, rather than other states.
Other states, particularly Midwest states, pay less. This is a generalization of course. Your negotiation skills will also come into play. A good negotiator or a good recruiter can make more in the Midwest than a bad one in California. Home health and SNFs will pay better than inpatient and outpatient rehab. You can make money anywhere, but you will have to be a savvy negotiator, and you might need to use the right recruiter to make a little extra money. But, as a general rule, California, Texas, and most Western states will pay better than the Midwest and Northeast.
In terms of opportunities, California is, without question, the leader. It makes sense to get a PT license in this state. At one time, one recruiter will have 10 or 20 contracts available. If you work with multiple recruiters, you could have access to 30 or more contracts. Any setting is available, and every location has at least one offer.
Other states are hit-and-miss, and sometimes only have one or two contracts. But the cost of a license in that state will cost about the same as a license in California. I first considered travel physical therapy when I was in my final trimester of school and I was looking for the best opportunity.
I remember another student said that the demands for travel physical therapists were higher than the demands for regular PTs. The belief is that the travel PTs are paid more and more is expected. To whom more is given, more is expected. For inpatient rehab and SNFs, six to eight patients. For acute care, eight to ten patents.
The belief is that if you have experience, then you will be able to handle these situations more easily than if you are a new grad. The truth is that many new grads have decided to travel immediately after PT school. Some travelers are at the end of their careers, and want to travel after being permanent PTs for years.
What happens is that you get comfortable in one spot, you meet a boyfriend or girlfriend, you like your job, you like the city you live in, and then you decide not to travel.
I feel that the ideal time to travel is as soon as the graduation ceremony is over. The typical trajectory is graduation, travel, and then permanent job. Why would you settle permanently in the first place, and then start a new life again? In fact, why make less your first year on the job than you could as a travel PT?
Of course, you will have to apply for each of these licenses separately, a process that can be greatly expedited if you follow the advice in Getting a License. Yes, there are jobs in each of these locations, but some locations have more choices than others. Guam has one contract in the school system.
I would highly surprised if Washington DC had a single contract. Some Midwest states have one contract in the entire state. Hawaii probably has two or three contracts, but the pay is significantly lower and cost of living higher. California has at least 30 contracts at any time. Your choice. In fact, you can get time off but you have to specify which dates you want off when you negotiate the contract. But you have to be able to look at your calendar three to six months in advance and see which days you want off.
I recommend you take off at least one day a month, especially in months like October and March without any national holidays. Most recruiters offer PTO, but you have to work full weeks or hours before you get a single day, so PTO is not as generous for travelers as it is for permanent workers. One advantage of traveling is that, at the end of every contract, you have the option of going to the next contract immediately, or taking a few days off for vacation. Every contract has a specified end, unlike permanent PT positions.
In one case, I extended because all the other PTs wanted time off in the month of August. It turned out to be my best assignment. Had it been a horrible assignment, I would not have stayed. I have taken a job before without really asking many questions about the actual position.
Be sure to ask what will be expected of you, if you are hired for the position. That was a big mistake. If you want competitive rates, you need to be in contact with at least companies when looking for a new position. The cons would include: You can be dropped from a contract with a month of notice, which is highly inconvenient Having to find housing at each new assignment can be a pain.
So when they tell you there is no wiggle room, there usually is. If you limit yourself to one recruiter, then you can't get a good feel for what "normal" pay is in a given area you are looking to work. After you interview for the position and decide if you want to take it, you then go back to your recruiter and tell them what it is you want.
You should negotiate your weekly take home pay and always be sure to get them to pay you for travel to your new assignment, license reimbursement, license renewal if it will expire during your assignment, as well as all of your medical needs TB test, flu shot, physical, etc.
It would be wise to have all of that written into the contract before you sign it, so they can't leave you hanging. You can. You just have to know those dates prior to signing the contract and make sure it is written in your contract. It just depends on your facility. But if you need it off, get it in writing, then sign.
I have been doing travel PT for 2 years. I am on my 5th assignment and every single one has been outpatient ortho. This is not true. The recruiter makes money off of you signing on to a new contract. The more they pay you, the less they make. They will try to lowball you as much as possible, for obvious reasons. If you are talking to other companies, then you will usually get a much more competitive billing rate.
For an outpatient [clinic], I have many different questions regarding patient care, documentation system, how many people the PTs see per hour, etc. I would also never take housing from a company.
You will always come out in the positive if you take the stipend. Tip 2: Do not let the travel physical therapy company find you housing. You will come out much better if you take the housing stipend and find your own housing. Same goes with health insurance. I have found that getting my own health insurance and taking their stipend is much better.
Most recruiters will try and make you feel like you are obligated to take the assignment after you interview with the contact. If you did not like the sound of the clinic during the interview, then tell them no. I have had recruiters end up paying me more than dollars more each week than what they initially offered me for a particular job. The best thing you can do is act like you aren't interested in the particular assignment, and the recruiter will generally find a way to make it more appealing to you usually by increasing the bill rate.
I always go to these and someone will help me out. I also have used Facebook; you can actually find great people this way. Just be safe and weed out the weird. They will be able to give you names of recruiters that they have liked in the past. What are advantages and disadvantages of using a travel physical therapy recruiter? Disadvantages: I can't think of any" - Bryan Hill. Which states should traveling physical therapists work in?
How do you facilitate the licensing process? Licenses can be found on the national PT website and it explains all application processes. I have found that California is the highest paying state, so far, and they have the most jobs available. Facilitate the licensing process by going to the state PT website, and following the instructions. California was by far the worst license for me to get so far. It took a total of 5 months.
So I actually learned a ton from her before actually starting. I would recommend talking to someone who has done it before; everyone will have advice. I worked 60 hours a week, and that company made so much money off me. I did not write everything in this book.
I solicited contributions from other travel physical therapists, a social media expert, travel physical therapy recruiters, and even a couple of financial advisors who assist physical therapists. The Six-Figure Traveler should be the most comprehensive resource on travel physical therapy. I wanted to get the perspective of travelers, but also the recruiters who work with them. Each side has a different experience. This book includes contributions from other travelers, other physical therapists, and even recruiters, all of whom I know personally.
None of the travelers had the exact same experience. You will have a completely unique experience. The contributions from other PTs are meant to provide the most comprehensive view of traveling physical therapy. Writing this book alone would not provide a complete understanding of travel PT, as I am one person with one experience. Including others in this book should provide a richer understanding. Below is a brief description of each of my contributors:.
After I finished this ebook and everything was ready to go, I realized that I had some extra information to add. Here's what I've learned since I first completed this book in Spring, Search our healthcare job database to find the. We're the prescription to all your healthcare staffing needs, recruiting medical professionals and providing staffing services nationwide. Log In Create a Profile. Join Now Join our talent community to learn more about travel nursing, travel allied, Locum Tenens, and permanent opportunities in your area.
Search Healthcare Jobs Have a specific location in mind? Sign up for our newsletter:. CovalentCareers Resources has released several articles in the past year to educate PTs about travel, and I recommend you read all of them.
This e-book aims to provide everything you need or want to know about travel PT, and should be the ultimate guide to traveling physical therapy. The information that is currently available is disparate - There is no central resource for travel PTs and I wanted to create an essential guide.
My hope is that this book becomes a resource to which you refer frequently, and that one day you can make six figures traveling the country. Maybe you want to make a little extra money to pay off those student loans as quickly as possible.
Maybe you like the itinerant lifestyle. As far as I know, this is the first comprehensive e-book on travel PT. If you do choose to become a traveler, then this book should help guide you. Want this as an ebook? Download at the bottom of the page! The Six-Figure Traveler discusses everything you would want to know about traveling: The pros and cons The advantages and disadvantages Negotiating pay Making more money Extending contracts Finding quality housing Taxes Finding the right job Interviewing tips Transitioning to a permanent job Myths and facts, and more The portion of the book I wrote is the culmination of my hours of thought and introspection.
The itinerant traveler More and more physical therapists are traveling. Traveling requires certain traits and attracts a certain personality.
Flexibility - You have to be able to move to a new place in one weekend. You have to change your residence every three to four months. You will probably live with other people. You might have to work in different environments. You might have to work on weekends. Wanderlust - The Germans call the desire to travel "wanderlust," and a traveling physical therapist must have it. You might not have your dream job.
You might work in a rural area. If you want to live in a comfortable neighborhood in a nice clinic in a large metro area, then take a permanent job. You are going to work alongside people who are not exactly like you. Do you like to drive? Are you married or single? How much experience do you have? Do you like to travel? Do you like stability? Can you handle the logistics?
Do you have to live in a large metro area? The ideal traveling physical therapist There are clearly a lot of considerations you need to take into account before you even decide to travel. Now I need to describe the ideal traveler to make sure this is something you want to do: 1 Flexible As I said above, you will live and work in smaller cities.
Summer's almost over, but the vacation doesn't have to end! Advantages of travel physical therapy Traveling This is the most obvious advantage. As a traveler, you can truly live and work at the same time. In fact, they pay you to travel. Most recruiters will reimburse you for the miles that you drive. You might not stay in the most glamorous cities, but you can often find jobs in smaller cities that are only one or two hours from large cities. For example, I had a job in Tucson, AZ. That positioned me just one hour and forty minutes from Phoenix Arizona, one hour from the Mexican border, and only seven hours from the coast of California.
The opportunity to see relatives Wherever I traveled, I had relatives. This gave me the opportunity to see family and friends whom I never had a chance to see during PT school. If all your relatives live in one area, then this might not concern you, but some of us, including me, have relatives scattered across the country.
I deliberately, and strategically, planned my trip so I could see them. On weekends, I would visit them and I now have memories I would have never had otherwise. Working and seeing family at the same time: what a deal! A chance to meet new people When you visit new places, you meet people you would not otherwise meet.
No place has the same people, and everyone has a different perspective. In every city I visited, I would go to a couple bars or restaurants, meet the bartenders, and talk to them. It was fun because I knew that only one copy of them existed and I could not meet them anywhere else.
You will meet new patents in every place, and no two places have the same people. Your coworkers will be unique. The people you meet at the gym will be different.
But you will notice that in many ways, people are the same wherever you go, and that generalizations are often incorrect.
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