- What is travel therapy?
- How long are travel therapy contracts / assignments ?
- Where do you go as a travel PT?
- What settings do you work in as a travel therapist?
- Can you travel local to your home?
- How does time-off work as a travel PT?
What is this Unicorn-of-a-job called Travel PT?!
Travel therapy is when an understaffed facility (like a hospital, skilled nursing facility , home health agency, outpatient clinic, school, etc.) seeks assistance from a recruiting company/ staffing agency to staff therapists (PTs, OTs, SLPs, PTAs, and COTAs) to fill a temporary need.
How Long are Travel PT Contracts?
- How long can you stay in one place as a travel PT?
Contract duration
The typical length of a contract is 13 weeks because that is usually the least amount of time that you can find short-term housing for (3 months), so this tends to be industry standard, but it can be adjusted longer or shorter to meet your needs or the needs of the facility.
If you are at a location, and you enjoy it and want to stay longer, and if the facility likes having you and still has a need, you could extend your contract. However, you cannot stay for longer than 1 year in a metropolitan area, if you want to continue to be considered a “traveler.”
EX) On average, I spend about six months in each place, typically renewing contracts once, but I have spent anywhere between 3 months and up to 11 months in one place.
Where do you go as a travel physical therapist?
- Where can you travel?
- Can I do travel PT close to home?
Job opportunities are available throughout the US, in rural and metropolitan areas and everywhere in between.
But if you only plan to travel within a 2 hour radius of you home town, you might want to reconsider the travel gig. You need to be flexible and open to new places and try different settings, especially as a new grad. It is not feasible to say “I want a job in City X for this start date in this setting.” It doesn’t quite work like that. The job options are predetermined based on where there is a need, so you need to be willing to those places, not really the other way around. And if you want to benefit from the tax- free stipends, you need to be willing to travel.
Can you travel local to your home?
You can still accept travel assignments local to your home. The only difference is that you wouldn’t be allotted the tax-free money for housing and meals, because you are not traveling away from your home. So while you can take a contract near your hometown, you might not qualify to collect the per diem or tax- free money that you get as a traveler, depending on your specific situation. As a result, you will probably still be making more than a perm job, but less than a “travel” job- so, closer to a contractor’s salary. However, since you wouldn’t have to rent another apartment on assignment, the net could be the same anyway.
What settings can you work in as a Travel PT?
- What settings are available as a travel PT?
- What settings do you work in as a travel physical therapist?
All settings are available: outpatient, home health, SNF, hospital, pediatrics, school, etc. Some settings tend to be more popular than other depending on the current market conditions. But in general, positions in all settings can be found.
If you are going to be more specific on setting, you will have to be more open to location, initially, and vice versa.
I tend to work between outpatient and home health jobs, but that is my preference.
PRO TIP: The more flexible you are with location AND setting as a travel PT, the more likely you will be to find a good job for you.
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