Travel Therapy 101

In the first episode of Travel Therapy Career Cast, our National Director of Recruitment Services offers an introduction to a career as a travel therapist and explains what are the main incentives to a travel career.

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Travel Therapy Career Cast: Episode #1 - Transcript

Peter: Welcome to our inaugural edition of the Travel Therapy Career Cast. I’m your host, Peter Clayton and with us today is Heather Markelz, Recruitment Manager for Onward Healthcare, a nationwide healthcare staffing agency based in Wilton, Connecticut.

Heather, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your career with Onward.

Heather: I’m the Director for Recruitment for the Allied Services here at on Onward Healthcare and I’ve been here for 5½ years, both as a recruiter and managing a team of recruitment professionals in the allied world.

Peter: We’re going to talk today about the basics of a career as a travel therapist and I assume that’s what allied means?

Heather: Allied professionals encompass a large variety of basically anything non-nursing is we know as we say here at Onward, but it encompasses anything from radiologists to chiropractors to a lot of different professionals, but specifically the allied staff that we focus in on are rehab therapists which include physical therapists, speech language pathologists, as well as PT assistants and OT assistants.

Peter: What kind of facilities do these professionals work in?

Heather: We work with all different clinical settings including hospitals both in inpatient departments, outpatient departments, long-term acute care. We work in clinics, sport medicines, schools, pediatric facilities, home health, skilled nursing… pretty much you name it, we work with them.

Peter: What are the minimum requirements to become a travel therapist?

Heather: We require a degree from accredited healthcare professional program either in the United States or in Canada, a license and really, that’s all you need. We do work with free housing and accommodations if they choose and most landlords don’t want to do a lease for anything less than three months, so by having that 13-week or three-month increment as a starting ground, this way we can provide those apartment accommodations and that just makes for a good length of time to be in an area and then you decide if you like it and if you do, you’ll always have the opportunity to stay. We do, do assignments that are less than 13 weeks and typically for that, you’re looking at an extended stay hotel in terms of your accommodations because they’re a little bit more flexible on the smaller amount of time that you would be there, but typically you’ll see the 13-week increments for travel.

Peter: Where can I go as a travel therapist?

Heather: You can go anywhere in the United States. We work in all 50 states, that includes Hawaii and Alaska and everywhere in the country.

Peter: Let’s talk a little bit about some of the business here. If I connect with you, do I have to sign some sort of long-term contract in order to work with Onward Healthcare?

Heather: It’s a great question. You actually do not. We enable all of our therapists to go through the interview process, to even obtain different offers and get a real inside look into what is available to them as a travel therapist and only at that point in time if they decide they want to move forward with an offer that’s presented would a contract then be signed and that contract would only for the length of time that we mutually agreed upon for whichever assignment the therapist is committed to.

Now, that being said, many of our therapist travel for years and years and years and we do have a loyalty bonus program where they receive, our travelers $1,000 for their first year, $2,000 for their second year with Onward, $3,000 for their third year and $3,000 every year after that and you’ll see we do have travelers who do travel for a long period of time but there’s no long-term commitment if that’s not what the therapist is looking for.

Peter: Why would a therapist choose to be a traveler versus having a permanent job somewhere?

Heather: First of all, by being a travel therapist it allows you access to thousands of rehab jobs that are available all throughout the United States and those jobs, like we touched on before, are in a variety of different settings including hospitals and clinics and schools, and skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers. It can be a really effective way to build your resume in a short period of time quite frankly, because you’re gaining the experience in the different facilities and the different clinical settings and just from an experience standpoint, it can be a really, really great opportunity.

Also, in terms of financials, you hands down are going to make more money if you’re interested in being a travel therapist. Basically, with our travel program if a traveler is basically declaring a permanent residence and choosing to work in another area of the country that’s at least two hours away from that permanent residence or in any other location throughout the country, they can actually receive 50% of their compensation free of taxes which basically means that a travel therapist can make a six figure salary easily as an PT, OT, or a speech therapist or $80,000 equivalent for PTAs and COTAs if they were to work with Onward Healthcare which is significantly higher than what most therapists average.

You also see that our travel therapists have the ability to create their own schedule. They can work as much as they want or take time off to travel, visit with family, embark in different educational endeavors, whatever you’re looking to do because they can even take off two weeks in between each assignment; we still cover all their benefits, or take an extended period of time off. We’re very flexible with that as well. Strong job security, travel therapy is expected to grow another 27% by 2016, so we’re looking at a lot of great career opportunities.

I could go on and on actually but I feel as though I’m taking a long time answering this question.

Peter: Let’s do this, why don’t you tell me when you speak with your travel therapists, what are the first one or two top things that they like about having this kind of a career option?

Heather: I would say the financial opportunity hands down is unlike any other opportunity.

Peter: They make more money.

Heather: Yup, absolutely, make a lot more money, especially with the tax benefits sponsored by the IRS. We’re looking at a significant increase in take home pay on a week-to-week basis. I’d say building, again, the resume and being able to have the opportunity to work in a lot of different settings is a really great opportunity when you’re looking at travel and the flexibility.

Peter: Let’s say, Heather, that I’ve got a family and I really can’t travel right now, is it possible to work with Onward Healthcare without traveling?

Heather: Yes, absolutely. We have a lot of our therapists that prefer to do what we call local contracting. In other words, doing those 13-week assignments but locally in the area where the therapist lives. The nice thing about that, you’re still getting the flexibility in terms of being able to work in a different settings and take time off as needed and a get a feel for it. What I explain to anyone who is local is you wouldn’t marry someone without dating them first, right? Well why would you commit to a permanent opportunity without being able to test it out first. Local contracting does just that for you; you’re able to see the facility first hand, get a feel and if you like it, by all means, you can settle down and become permanent. If not, hey, move onto the next because we have a lot of different contracts again, thousands throughout the country in all 50 states.

Peter: Heather, am I required to pay Onward Healthcare for their placement services?

Heather: No, our services are completely free to all of our travel therapist candidates.

Peter: One last question for you, Heather. If I’m new to this whole traveling concept, how will Onward Healthcare prepare me for my travel therapist job?

Heather: I’d say first and foremost, our recruitment team, I really look at them as career advisers as they are all very highly knowledgeable in the travel allied field and their biggest interest is to assist you in achieving your professional goals, financial goals, what you’re looking to do and our staff really is able to assist you every single step of the way. From the interview prep in terms of letting you know how to interview effectively, to talking about what positions are available nationwide and keep in mind with every single state, there’s a state licensure process and our career advisers, they’re very well informed on every state in terms of what’s required, what the paperwork is involved in order to obtain a state license for which ever state you’re looking to practice in.

We’re also Joint Commission accredited and with that, we’re basically able to handle all the credentialing in-house right in Onward Healthcare from the drug screens to the background check to everything that’s required, medical requirements, CPR to making sure that you’re fully compliant and ready to start your assignment. We also have a housing department that will set up housing and it’s a fully furnished one bedroom apartment, utilities are included, so that’s a really nice perk.

Of course, if the healthcare professionals that we’re working with do not wish to take our Onward Healthcare provided housing, we’ll just give the monetary amount that we would have spent on housing in lieu of that and basically, they’ll make more money; so that’s always an option as well. We enroll our therapists in a very comprehensive benefits plan that includes health, dental, vision, life, liability. After six months, our therapists have the option to participate even in 401K plan and we offer 24/7 customer service support. So we’re here when you need it, whenever you need it and I think by far, that’s one of the most important things through the whole process.

Peter: So no surprises.

Heather: No surprises, you got it. Someone’s always here.

Peter: Great. Heather, thank you so much for joining us for the inaugural edition of the Travel Therapy Career Cast.

Heather: Thanks. It was great being here.

Thank you for tuning into Travel Therapy Career Cast. For more information on beginning an exciting career as a travel therapist, you should visit Onward Healthcare at www.OnwardHealthcare.com or call 1-800-278-0332 to speak with one of our experienced recruiters.

You should also follow Onward Healthcare on Twitter at Twitter.com/OnwardHealth and fan them on Facebook at Facebook.com/TravelNursing.

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