How much do hospitals pay...

[PrincessKitty1]

...for traveling nurses??

Inspired by the thread on how many weeks of vacation you get a year....my hospital pays mediocre salaries and pretty pitiful benefits, and since they can't get enough nurses to staff the hospital, they pay through the nose for traveling nurses.

I would love to know how much each one of these nurses costs our hospital...wouldn't you think that a hospital would look to the future when they decide how much to pay their regular staff, and maybe CONSIDER paying us enough to stay, so that they don't have to hire travelers or import nurses from other countries??

 

[CF'er]

based on what we paid a temp to work in our hosp lab I don't think you want to know. Makes you want to go on the road.

What ticked us off was that we were willing to cover the shifts as OT and it would have been cheaper that way but mgmt said no.

I saw the contract to the temp agency...

 

[sunee]

A friend of mine did travel nursing. She made a bundle. Put all her crap in storage and raked it in while nursing in Hawaii and Alaska.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

based on what we paid a temp to work in our hosp lab I don't think you want to know. Makes you want to go on the road.

What ticked us off was that we were willing to cover the shifts as OT and it would have been cheaper that way but mgmt said no.

I saw the contract to the temp agency...

I do want to know!! I've talked to lots of travelers, and I know how much they make and what their housing allowance is, BUT I know that the hospital is also paying the travel companies a fee on top of the nurses' salary/benefits. So exactly how much do they pay the agency for one nurse, for one 13 week contract??

(BTW I know travelers who say that some hospitals will put them on as a charge nurse for 40 patients on their very first day, supervising a bunch of other temps....I would not do this no matter how much they wanted to pay me! I value the safety of my patients and my license. My hospital would NEVER treat a traveler this way.)