Negotiating Pay on a Travel Therapy Contract

January 13, 2022 ~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ 5 Comments

Pay negotiation is one of the most often asked about and least understood aspects of travel therapy. Since one of the biggest fears for new and aspiring travel therapists is being taken advantage of by travel companies and recruiters with regards to pay, it’s understandable why so many people are in search of information on negotiation.

Unfortunately, travel therapy is a niche industry and most of the advice out there about negotiation is written for those applying for permanent positions as the target audience, and that advice may or may not apply to us as travelers. To make matters worse, travel healthcare Facebook groups are often filled with unhelpful or even counterproductive advice when it comes to negotiating pay on a new travel contract. This is largely due to the fact that negotiating pay in a travel contract is complex, varies significantly from contract to contract, and impossible to explain with proper nuance in a short Facebook post. Sometimes though, the information given is purposely deceptive or vague in an attempt to convince you that the person knows some “secret” about negotiation that you can learn too, if only you work with their recruiters or buy their product. Rest assured that no such secrets exist.

Over the last six years as travel therapists ourselves as well as serving as mentors for thousands of other travelers, we’ve learned a lot about negotiating travel contracts and what all goes into determining how and when to push for more money. In this article, I’ll do my best to outline how to negotiate on your next travel therapy contract and maximize your pay package.

Working with Multiple Trusted Recruiters

Working with more than one recruiter (ideally three) is one of the most important things you can do increase your pay and negotiating ability as a travel therapist. It’s not enough to just be working with more than one though, you need to make sure that they each know that you have other recruiters also assisting you in your job search in order to find the highest paying job that fits your individual needs. Having a recruiter who understands that they have competition during a job search often makes them much more likely to stay on the ball when it comes to submitting you for jobs and also more likely to give you the highest pay offer they possibly can right off the bat in order to avoid losing your business to a different recruiter. If you only work with one recruiter, they know that the only pay offers you’re receiving are coming from them and that you have nothing to compare to in terms of pay and that they might be able to get away with underpaying you to varying degrees for a contract.

We’ve mentored dozens of travelers who were being low-balled massively, in some cases for years, due to only working with one recruiter who was taking advantage of them, and having no way to know if the offers they were receiving were reasonable. For example, let’s say that you’re only working with one recruiter, and they offer you $1,700/week take home for a job. You have no way to know if $1,700/week is high, low, or fair for that specific contract since you have nothing to compare it to either in terms of other travel jobs in the area or what a different travel company might offer you for that same job. You tell the recruiter that you’ll take the job for slightly higher at $1,750/week and they agree. You feel like you did a good job negotiating a higher pay rate, but in reality it’s possible the recruiter could have afforded to pay you $1,900/week for that job, and purposely made you a low offer knowing they could let you negotiate a slightly higher rate while still making a big profit on the contract. Of course, $1,700/week could also be a really good offer for that job too depending on the situation, but the point is that when working with only one recruiter you have no way of knowing, and the incentive for the recruiter is to start with a lower offer knowing that you might just accept it and allow them to keep a higher margin on the contract.

Of course not all recruiters are going to take advantage of you. Often if you have built a good relationship with a recruiter, or if you’ve been referred to a trusted recruiter by another experienced traveler, you have a better feeling that the recruiter is genuine and they’ll give you their best offer up front. But particularly when you’re starting out and don’t know the recruiter as well, it’s hard to know if they’re low balling you. By working with multiple recruiters who know they have some competition, the odds of receiving a low ball offer are much lower since they want to be the one to land you a job so they get paid, instead of you going with a recruiter from a different travel company.

In addition, even if you have a recruiter or multiple recruiters who you trust and don’t think are low balling you, it’s still in your best interest to work with multiple in order to compare offers. Sometimes, what one company can pay for a job is going to be higher or lower than another company based on the company’s margins and operating costs, and this may be completely outside of the recruiter’s control. So, even if the recruiter is honestly giving you their best offer up front, you put yourself in a better position to receive the highest pay by comparing offers across multiple companies.

Understanding When You Have the Power in a Negotiation

Negotiating from a position of power is vital. Even more vital though is being able to understand when you’re in a position of power and when you aren’t. In any negotiation, the individual with the most power is the one that is in a position to able to “take it or leave it.”

For this reason, one of the biggest things that gives you power in negotiation as a travel therapist is having multiple different offers either from different facilities, or from different companies for the same contract. If you have three offers from three different facilities that would all work for you, then you have a lot of power to push for higher pay from all of them and then simply go with the one that is able to pay the most. If you have offers from two different facilities, one of which pays less but is a better fit for you clinically and the other that pays more but is less ideal clinically but still reasonable, then that is the perfect position to leverage the higher offer from the less desirable clinic to increase the offer at the clinic you really want to go to.

Telling your recruiter something along the lines of, “I’d love to take this job and it sounds perfect for me, but I have another offer that is paying higher. If you can find a way to match that offer then I’ll take it, otherwise I’ll just go with the other offer” is perfectly reasonable and a great negotiation tactic. The issue here is that you have to actually be willing to walk away or take the lower offer if the recruiter truly isn’t able to match the higher offer either because they can’t decrease their margin any lower or the facility won’t increase the bill rate. “Take it or leave it.” We’ve personally used this tactic several times in the past to negotiate a much higher pay package on contracts.

One thing to mention is that lying to one of your recruiters about having another offer in a negotiation is not something that we advise, for a couple of reasons. First, having a good relationship with your recruiters is very important and you should treat them the way that you want to be treated. You wouldn’t want them to lie and take advantage of you, so you shouldn’t do that to them either. Second, if you lie about having another offer to try to increase pay, then it’s very possible that the facility could just go with a different candidate if your recruiter tries to ask for a higher pay rate, and then you lose out on that job without having a back up plan.

It’s also important to know that if you hear about the same job from two different recruiters, you can compare pay and choose to go with the one that has the higher offer, but you need to do this before being submitted for the job by one of the recruiters. You should never be submitted to the same job by two different recruiters. Being double submitted for a job can get you in trouble and often the facility will just throw out your application.

Supply and Demand

Another thing that gives you power in a negotiation is the supply and demand dynamics both of the travel therapy market in general at that time, as well as with that specific assignment. For example, let’s say that the travel therapy market is really tight like it was in 2020 during the height of COVID, and you’re specifically looking for an outpatient PT job in Virginia. If there’s only one outpatient PT travel job in the state, then you’ll be very limited in your ability to play hardball with negotiation on that job since if you don’t land it, it could be several weeks before another similar job pops up. If you don’t take it and have to wait around for something else, you’ll lose significantly more due to the opportunity cost of missing out on that job than you’d stand to gain from increasing the weekly rate slightly. On the other hand, if the supply and demand dynamics are in favor of the travel therapist and there are a plethora of jobs that fit your search criteria, then you can be much more aggressive in your negotiation, knowing that you’ll have other options if that one doesn’t work out.

These supply and demand dynamics also apply to specific assignments that are more or less desirable depending on setting and location. For example, if you’re applying for a SNF contract in North Dakota in the winter, it’s very likely that you’re the only applicant for that position, and you can leverage that situation to push for higher pay on that contract. A facility with no other applicants that has a severe need for a therapist will often increase their bill rate significantly to get a good candidate for the job. The supply and demand dynamics are in your favor here, and you’re in a position of power which is what you need for negotiation. Meanwhile, if you’re applying for a Outpatient job in San Diego, it’s almost guaranteed that they have dozens of applicants since that’s a desirable setting in a very desirable area. If you get an offer but try to push for higher pay, then the facility will just go with a different candidate. The supply and demand dynamics are in their favor which limits your negotiation ability.

Improving and Highlighting Your Skills and Certifications

One surefire way to improve your ability to negotiate as a travel therapist is by making yourself more desirable as a candidate. If a facility has multiple candidates for a travel therapy position, but you’re clearly the best suited for the job either due to your clinical skills, experience, or ability to sell yourself in the interview, then it’s possible that they will be willing to pay more for you. Things like certifications, CEU courses, and prior experience in the setting and/or with the EMR can be bargaining chips that your recruiter can use to push the facility to pay a higher bill rate in order to get you to fill the position, which can lead to a significant increase in your pay package. Keep in mind that your strengths won’t help you in a negotiation if no one knows about them, so be sure to highlight them in your resume as well as in your interview with the facility for the position.

Putting it All Together

We’ll often have travelers reach out asking how to negotiate higher pay on a contract when they clearly don’t have any actual leverage in the negotiation for that position. We wish there was some secret for all negotiations, but unfortunately there isn’t, and every situation involves a lot of nuance.

A new grad applying for a travel job with no experience in a setting that’s in a desirable location and who has no other offers simply isn’t going to be able to negotiate a significant increase in pay. They can always try, but 99% of the time the facility will just go with a different candidate, and the therapist will be back to square one on the job search. Similarly, for a therapist who is looking for a very specific setting and location, there is often little ability to push hard in negotiations and risk losing the one opportunity that fits their search criteria. So in cases like this, telling the therapist to use hardball tactics to push for high pay is going to be counterproductive and frustrating for them.

On the other hand, an experienced clinician applying for a travel job in a less desirable location who has many other offers and job options can often negotiate an increase of several hundred dollars per week on their pay package simply by leveraging their experience, other offers, and the need of the facility to significantly increase the bill rate.

The bottom line is that negotiation isn’t ever going to be one size fits all, and anyone who tries to give you black and white blanket advice either doesn’t understand negotiation or is trying to sell you something.

When negotiating for pay on your next contract, use the tips above to analyze the power dynamics and make sure that you’re negotiating from a position of strength and are being realistic in your requests so that you don’t miss out on a great contract for you!

I hope this helps you in future travel job searches and negotiations! Feel free to message us if you have any questions, or if you want help getting connected with additional recruiters to expand your negotiating power!

Written by Jared Casazza, PT, DPT – Jared has been a Travel PT since 2015 and has mentored thousands of current and aspiring travel therapists.

Jared Casazza, PT, DPT, Travel Therapy Mentor

Travel Therapy Pay 101

July 11, 2020April 4, 2023 ~ Travel Therapy Mentor ~ 10 Comments

Travel Therapy Pay 101: How Does It Work?

A huge perk of travel therapy (Travel PT, Travel OT, Travel SLP) is that you can make more money! But how much more? And how does the pay work?

The way we get paid as traveling therapists is different than that of a normal salary or hourly position (such as at a regular permanent job or a PRN job). Why? For one, we don’t work on an annual basis, we work on a week to week basis, so you can’t discuss our pay in terms of an annual salary. We also can’t discuss pay in terms of a strict “hourly” rate, because we often receive tax-free stipends as part of our pay.

Typically, as a traveling healthcare professional, you’re going to get paid a regular hourly rate (which is taxed), plus a per diem or stipend for housing, meals, and incidentals (which is usually untaxed, as long as you meet the requirements of maintaining a proper tax home).

Why do we get paid this way? Well, as traveling workers, we receive pay not only for the work we do, but we also receive reimbursements to cover our housing and other expenses while we are there. Per the IRS, as long as you’re maintaining a “Tax Home” at your permanent residence, you get a tax break on the stipend part of your pay. So, at the end of the day, because you don’t have to pay taxes on that part of your pay, you end up making more money after taxes than at a regular job, where all of your pay is taxed.

To learn more about tax homes, check out the Tax Home part of our series! We also recommend visiting TravelTax.com to make sure you’re following all the proper rules!

Sometimes, travel therapists will also receive additional reimbursements for things like their state license, scrubs, and mileage/travel to get to the assignment.

So your pay is going to be broken into these segments which make up what’s called the “Pay Package“: Hourly Rate + Stipends/Per Diems + Reimbursements.

But, in order to easily discuss pay packages, people in the travel therapy industry normally refer to pay in what’s called the “Weekly Take-Home” amount. This is a number that encompasses how much you’re going to make each week in total, since it’s easier to discuss travel therapy jobs on a week by week basis. It’s important to distinguish when talking about “Weekly Pay” if the person you’re talking to is referring to gross pay or net/after tax pay. Most of the time we all discuss it as after tax pay which is what “Weekly Take Home” means, the amount you actually take home after taxes.

How do you calculate a “Weekly Take Home” number?

You take the hourly rate and multiply it by the number of hours you worked.

For example, $20/hr x 40hrs = $800

Then, you subtract out the taxes you have to pay on that amount, which depends on your state and your tax filing status (for example single/married and if you claim dependents).

So let’s say you owed 30% taxes, it would be $800 x 70%= $560 after taxes

Then, you’ll add in your weekly per diem amounts, for example $1000/wk total for meals/housing/incidentals.

So if your pay was $20/hr + $1000/wk stipends, your “weekly take home” amount would be: $560 (after taxes) + $1000 (untaxed) = $1560/wk after taxes!

Then you might get a one time reimbursement of say $500 for travel/license, so you’d get $500 one time, then each week also get $1560/wk!

Where Does the Money Come From?

It’s important to understand where the money comes from when you’re talking about pay. As a travel therapist, the facility decides how much they’re going to offer for the position. The facility pays the travel company an amount of money, which is called the bill rate. Then, the travel company has to take a cut for their costs (a commission for their services and overhead costs), then the travel company pays you out of the remainder of the bill rate left over.

Once the money gets to the travel company, they can decide how to divide it up and give it to the traveler, and the traveler often has some input too. Here is where money can be moved around and allocated different ways to maximize the tax benefits for both the travel company and the traveler. For example, as long as they’re following the IRS guidelines for per diems, they can put more money towards your stipend/per diems (which is usually untaxed as long as you qualify) and less money towards the hourly pay (which is taxed).

So the bill rate that the facility gives the travel company could be something like $60-80/hr. Then the travel company takes out their cut. Then your pay might look something like: $20/hr (taxed) + $1000/wk per diems (untaxed).

Similarly, they can choose to allocate some of the pay towards separate reimbursements. So you could see something like $20/hr (taxed) + $960/wk per diems (untaxed) + $500 one time reimbursement for licensure and mileage.

But, as we can see here, in the second example with the $500 reimbursement, the per diem is lower. If you divided that $500 out over the course of a 13 week assignment, $500/13=$38. So both the above pay packages are really about the same, because in one example the per diem is $40 higher each week, and in the other it’s $40 lower but has an extra $500 one-time payment tacked on.

It’s important to note that there isn’t just “free money” floating around that the company can give you for “extras”. Think of a pay package as all one big pie. You can cut the pie in different ways, but it’s still the same pie. Some companies will use gimmicks to say they’re going to give you more money for a certain contract by calling them reimbursements, bonuses, tuition paybacks, contract completion bonuses etc. But, as an informed and savvy traveler, you need to know that all the pay is coming from somewhere. Either, it comes directly out of the bill rate for that specific contract, directly from that specific facility to the travel company. Or, the travel company might allocate a particular budget into a department to give out money for things like licensure reimbursements. But, you have to understand that in order to have that budget available in their company, it means they take it out of their commissions/overhead for all contracts for all travelers across the board. So either way, the money comes from somewhere and affects your weekly pay in one way or another once it’s all said and done!

This is an important fact to remember if you find yourself trying to compare pay either between yourself and another traveler, or between two contracts you’re being offered by two different companies. You have to look at the entire “pay package” (the whole “pie”) not just one piece of it.

How Much Money Do Travel Therapists Normally Make?

The amount that travel therapists make varies highly based on a number of factors, with the main ones being: the type of facility, the location of the facility, and the travel company. These are all very important factors to keep in mind, especially again if you’re going to try to compare pay with another traveler, or compare between two different contracts you’re considering. You can’t expect the pay to be the same for a completely different setting, in a completely different state, and with a different company, which is just the same for perm jobs if you think about it!

So what’s a typical range?

A typical range for a traveling physical therapist, occupational therapist, or speech language pathologist, is going to be around $1500-1800/wk after taxes.

For PTA/COTA, you could see pay typically between $1000-1300/wk.

But we have seen PT/OT/SLP pay anywhere from $1350/wk to $2500+/wk! These extremes are going to be more rare. We don’t recommend taking jobs with pay below $1500/wk after taxes. However, during COVID, pay has been a little lower, and desperate times have called for desperate measures. But in general, we don’t recommend accepting below $1500/wk as a PT/OT/SLP.

Pay in the $1800-2500+ range is going to be only in certain parts of the country and for certain really high paying jobs.

For travel therapists, the setting that tends to pay the most is home health, while SNF tends to pay the lowest, and outpatient, hospital, or schools tend to fall in the middle.

The higher paying areas are typically more on the west coast, particularly in California. Where on the east coast and midwest you’ll see more moderate pay.

And as we mentioned, the travel company you’re working with can make a difference too, depending on how much overhead/commission they keep, and how they choose to allocate the pay.

The Bottom Line

So as you can see, travel therapists can make significantly more money than therapists at permanent positions in many cases. But, pay can vary highly across the board depending on a number of factors. And, it can be tricky understanding how your pay is broken down in order to compare pay between offers and with other travelers.

Learning and understanding how the pay works before you dive in and get started as a traveler is very important! To learn more, check out this Comprehensive Guide to Travel Therapy Pay.

We hope this article was informative and helped you! To continue learning about travel therapy, check out the rest of the articles & videos on our series Travel Therapy 101: The Basics

Please contact us if you have questions about getting started with your travel therapy journey, or would like our recommendations for great recruiters!

Written by Whitney Eakin, PT, DPT, ATC

Whitney has been a traveling physical therapist since 2015. She has helped to mentor and educate thousands of current and aspiring travel therapists over the years.