Top 10 Travel Therapy Myths

Aug 17

Ever think about being a Travel Therapist for like a split second… And then feel bombarded by all of the “negatives” everyone says about it?! Well, I’m writing this article to Bust the Top 10 Myths About Travel Therapy!

MYTH 1: YOU NEED AT LEAST 1 YEAR OF EXPERIENCE BEFORE YOU CAN TRAVEL

This is probably the first thing you will hear if you are a new graduate looking into job options for your launching career and considering travel. For us, this is the first warning we heard, and while it was good intentioned, it wasn’t true. While we may have felt more comfortable entering our first travel assignment with a year of licensed work under our belts, we didn’t want to run the risk of never traveling because we decided to wait a year so we would feel more comfortable.

Now, don’t get me wrong… not all travel assignments are new grad friendly. You need to establish your strengths and weaknesses and be okay with saying no to a job that isn’t going to fit you well. This is also why it is essential to be linked up with a recruiter that will care about getting you into a contract that suits you and where you will have an excellent first experience!

In a competitive travel market, it may take you a bit longer to secure a travel assignment. This is simply because there are other therapists out there with more experience and more robust resumes….. just like in the permanent job market. After passing our boards, it took us 3 weeks and 3 days to land our team assignments. While this may not sound suuupperr long, it felt like an eternity! We hit the travel market just as a change to reimbursement caused many layoffs. We were told that there were about 1/3 of the jobs available compared to the previous year. Considering all that, we were thankful to get TWO jobs together, relatively quickly!

MYTH 2: THERE’S NO MENTORSHIP IN TRAVEL THERAPY

This is the second myth you will hear as a newer graduate considering travel. Mentorship is regarded as one of the most valuable ways to develop your professional skills from novice new grad to seasoned professional. We agree! There is a lot to learn from therapists who have seen a few hundred more patients than we have! Where this myth goes wrong is where it assumes the only way to be mentored is at a permanent position. While your travel assignment might not have a formal mentorship program, many recruiting companies do. They have seasoned clinicians at the ready that you can email and call if you have a question.

Where we are currently placed (our first contract), we have 6 clinicians with 10+ years of experience! What a great resource! They have all been kind and extremely willing to answer questions or discuss patients to brainstorm effective treatment. I have already learned so many new treatment ideas just from being in the same gym as these therapists. NEW GRADS - this is one of those important questions you want to ask on your interview for your first assignment: Are there other clinicians at the location? How long have they been there? How many years of experience do they have? - ALL GREAT QUESTIONS

Additionally, the mentorship you would get at a permanent position is likely very similar to the above paragraph’s scenario. Unless you are looking to specialize, learn the ins and outs of a business you would like to own, or wanting intense mentorship that is written into your contract…. the mentorship at a perm position will be just like the mentorship you get at your travel position.

MYTH 3: TRAVEL MEANS POOR JOB SECURITY

You’ve heard this one….. Are you going to be guaranteed 40 hours a week? What if you can’t find another contract? What if your contract gets canceled? Well, you might have time off in between contracts, and that can’t be good!

The truth is, all of these are legitimate concerns, but there are perfectly reasonable answers to these things as well.

There are guaranteed hours written into your assignment with most travel contracts, and if this isn’t there, then it should be. Most of the time, you will see a 36-hour guarantee, which is the minimum guarantee you should take if you want to work full time. Right now, both Ryan and I have a 40-hour guarantee! This protected us through COVID 19 hour and pay cuts.

It is true, contracts can get canceled…. but this is another provision that should be written into your contract. Currently, we have a 14-day notice written into our contract. This means that even if your contract is canceled, you will have 14 days to continue working before you have to move on! In times of crisis, like COVID 19, we heard that guarantees and days of notice were waved because the coronavirus was an unforeseen natural disaster or emergency. This might be something to consider when negotiating your contracts. You might want to ask how the company handled their traveling employees during times of crisis to get a gauge on how they might treat you if you were working there during another emergency. Also, keep in mind that many permanent employees see layoffs during times of crisis as well. Crises, unfortunately, happen, and they are just hard on everyone.

As for having time off between contracts, we have friends who traveled as a team for three years with contracts back to back! I’d say that sounds pretty secure! In addition, the time between contracts can be a massive perk of being a traveler! If you want time off in between contracts to travel or visit family… you can plan for that! How awesome! Who doesn’t want that kind of flexibility!?

MYTH 4: TRAVELING OFFERS NO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

We are firm believers that there are many ways to develop your professional skills as a traveler. Now, DO HEAR THIS. If you want to specialize in a specific treatment area, this often means a certain number of hours of clinical practice in that specialty area. Physical therapists have a minimum of 2,000 hours to qualify for specialist certification! This will be hard to attain as a traveler, as you are typically moving clinics every 3 months. In addition, specialized clinics are often looking for specialized PTs, or PTs looking to specialize, so stumbling upon this job listed as open for travelers just isn’t probable.

HOWEVER, if you are not looking to specialize just yet, you still have plenty of opportunities to hone your skill and craft! Many recruiting companies offer money for continuing education, just as permanent placements do. This means you can be reimbursed for conferences, online classes, or memberships to continuing education databases! You may also have the advantage of being placed near a conference that you’d like to attend. Another perk of time off between contracts is that you may choose to travel to a conference during that time! Also, as a traveler, you get the chance to meet a lot of people. This means you’ll have the opportunity to learn from and build relationships with clinicians across the country!

MYTH 5: RETIRED TRAVELERS HAVE POOR HIREABILITY FOR PERM POSITIONS

“I don’t ever hire on previous travelers” are the words I heard from a CEO trying to hire me as a new grad and sway me from launching my career as a traveler. Quite frankly, this really upset me. If he was willing to hire me on now because he was pleased with my work ethic, my treatments, my personability with patients, and whatever else - what about being a traveler would change any of that? The fact is, he was trying to scare me. To harness the fears and myths that others have about traveling and doing something unconventional so that I would choose to work for him.

The truth is the characteristics that this CEO wanted to hire me for were not going to change once I became a traveling therapist. They were only going to get improved upon! In addition, as a traveler, I was going to gain so much experience by practicing in multiple settings, under various managements, getting to know a multitude of personalities, and learning how to fit in with them and work as a team. I would only strengthen my hireability for a permanent position by learning about successful and non-successful management strategies, by treating patients throughout the continuum of care, and by being a flexible teammate, willing to come into a clinic and do my best to help it run smoother than it did before.

Some say that travelers will expect too much money or get bored and want to move on from a permanent position. The fact is that if you have a good work ethic, you’re personable with people, and you practice well, you are going to have fantastic references, and you are going to be the kind of person that clinic wants to hire. Would they really throw out a qualified, well rounded, successful clinician for one reason only…. that they traveled?! I don’t think so.

MYTH 6: THE ONLY JOBS AVAILABLE ARE AT BAD CLINICS

HUGE MYTH ALERT!

Repeat after me: There.Is.No.Such.Thing.As.Travel.Jobs.

All travel job openings are also open to permanent employees. The only reason the company is contracting a traveler is because they can’t find a permanent employee in time to meet their clinic’s needs. Often, this takes the form of a rural clinic that doesn’t have any nurses or therapists who live in town to apply for the opening. This doesn’t mean that the clinic has poor ethics or poor management, it just means that they are located in a town with a low population of prospective healthcare workers to employ.

There may also be openings at a clinic because someone is going on maternity or paternity leave, and they do not have an employee who works per diem that can pick up the extra caseload for 3 months while that employee is off work.

MYTH 7: TRAVELING DOESN’T OFFER BENEFITS

This is just a plain ole myth… there’s nothing fancy to it. All travel agencies I have contacted offer benefits. Packages offered by travel agencies may differ, but they can include health insurance, vision, dental, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, malpractice insurance, short term disability, long term disability, and retirement savings such as a 401k. WHEW, THAT WAS A LONG SENTENCE.

…onto the next myth…

MYTH 8: TRAVELING IS LONELY

While you many want to consider your extroverted tendencies and your need for familiarity before traveling, by no means does traveling have to be lonely business. There are many traveling TEAMS! A team means there are two travelers looking to get placed in the same vicinity so that they can live together in the same town and enjoy the perks of travel together! This is a super fun idea because many of us health professionals are close with our classmates who studied with us in college or with our health professional colleagues. This is a great opportunity to get together with your friend and travel around the country! If you’re like us, you can also look at the possibility of traveling with your spouse or significant other!

What’s great about teams is you don’t have to be in the same health profession to be able to travel together! This is a simple idea, and somewhat obvious, but sometimes we forget this little fact since both Ryan and I are physical therapists. Nurses, OTs, PTs, SLPs, PTAs, and COTAs can all travel, IN WHATEVER COMBINATION WORKS FOR YOU!

Another cool thing about travel therapy is the COMMUNITY! You don’t have to look far to find someone who is excited to encourage you in your journey on Instagram or to find a traveler’s meet up! There is even a whole conference dedicated to traveling health professionals held in Las Vegas, and we have heard it is super fun!

MYTH 9: TRAVEL COMPANIES PICK WHERE YOU GO/YOU HAVE NO CHOICE

When you decide to be a traveling health professional, you have to go in with a flexible mindset. If you come into travel looking for your DREAM placement and are not willing to budge on ANY DETAIL, well… you may not end up finding a job - and if you do, you won’t have but one option to choose from. This isn’t realistic. It is good to come to your recruiter with your top 3 most important requests. Determine what you aren’t willing to budge on in order to know the small details you can give on..

Chances are, if you come in with this mindset, you will have plenty of fantastic job opportunities to choose from! That’s how travel therapy works! You tell your recruiter your requests, the recruiter finds the best job openings that fit your requests, and you choose which places you want to interview at! It’s kind of like house hunting…. haha

Watch our video on the Travel Triangle to better understand how to give your recruiters direction while still remaining flexible and easy to work with! When they have a clearer picture of what you want, they can get you that job quicker!

MYTH 10: YOU GET PAID THE SAME AT A PERMANENT POSITION

As a traveler you will get paid more than most permanent employees simply because the facility needs you FAST! Think about it, you enable them to see more patients and to be more productive…. if they spend time waiting around for a permanent therapist to apply to the job, they are losing money and sending those potential patients to another facility. WHO WOULD DO THAT?! So, they hire you, but there’s a fee for your accessibility - and that’s travel!

Travel also has a few tax benefits that you can claim if you qualify! We will have another article and YouTube video on this if you’d like to find out more!

IN SUMMARY…

…. If I haven’t told you guys yet, NO ONE working in a permanent position is going to support your decision to travel, no questions asked, or without asking one of these 10 myths. Whether they never wanted to travel, never had, or never took the opportunity to travel, most people are just afraid of the unconventional. Don’t let the fears of others become your fears. Travel offers a lot of opportunity. Decide if its right for you and pursue it without fear!

What myths did we miss? Let us know below! 👇