Also, read How to Become a Travel Nurse definitive guide.
With a compact nursing license, Texas Board of Nursing will get you ready to work in as little as a week. Texas has 9% of nation’s population and some of the best hospitals. Here are some of the hottest travel nursing destinations in Texas.
Travel Nursing Licensure in Texas.
Texas is a compact nursing Licensure state, meaning that if your original nursing license is a compact licensure state, you can start working in Texas without wasting time. There is a total of 25 states in the USA under Nursing Licensure Compact (NLC) and here is the list and a map of these states.
You are required to hold a Registered Nursing (RN) license to work as a travel nurse in Texas. Texas Board of Nursing is also a super friendly body known to be very responsive and welcoming.
On average, Texas Board of Nursing takes about 4 weeks to register a travel nursing practicing from a Non-compact state. This means it is always better to prepare in advance. Make sure to have all your FBI fingerprinting done in advance as this is a requirement.
Contact Texas Board of Nursing in advance to get the process started. If you are traveling with a compact nursing license, come on down. You should be ready to go in a matter of days or a week.
You may notice that the above nursing specialties require you to have BLS, ACLS and/or PALS. Keep these certifications on your wallet as you will require them from your first day of application as a travel nurse.
A travel nurse in San Antonio will likely make better money than a travel nurse in Dallas. Having said that, some cities with a low supply of travel nurses tend to pay even better to attract more travel nurses.
A travel nurse in Midland, Texas might end up making more money than a travel nurse in Houston. Same tend to be the case in cities like Laredo, Lubbock, Amarillo and such smaller cities isolated in the country. Your goals as a traveler will determine where to travel to.
Same tend to be the case in cities like Laredo, Lubbock, Amarillo and such smaller cities isolated in the country. Your goals as a traveler will determine where to travel to.
Pay closer attention to cities like Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland when it comes to pay and flexibility of what is available. It is much easier to take more home in these cities as cost of living is low, pay rates are higher and it is much easier to work more than 3 days a week if you so desire.
Who Has Most Travel Nursing Jobs in Texas? Which hospitals are Hiring?
Texas has about 178 acute care hospitals with 75 in-patient beds or more. Among these 178 hospitals, about 40 of them are owned and operated by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) with 13 facilities in Dallas-Fortworth area alone. Dallas – Fortworth area is truly competitive when it comes to nursing jobs. Baylor Scotts & White healthcare system is currently the largest hospital system in Dallas area and one of the biggest employer in Texas.
Baylor Scotts & White healthcare system is currently the largest hospital system in Dallas area and one of the biggest employer in Texas.
The battle for good nurses in Dallas is fierce although each hospital and healthcare system has their own model of hiring nurses. HCA is known to be one of the easiest healthcare systems to work for as a travel nurse. You are almost guaranteed to get a job with HCA.
HCA owns its own internal organization for recruiting travel nurses and local agency nurses called Parallon workforce management solutions. Being as large as it is, parallon has a good neck grip on nursing job market in Texas, allowing them the liberty to not pay nurses so well.
The good thing is, they are rarely able to fill all their open positions with travel nurses or local agency staffing nurses. When this happen, they rely on sub-vendors to supply them with qualified travel nurses. It is much easier and cost effective for them to use sub-vendor travel nursing agencies than to hire directly. These sub-vendor travel nursing agencies are given a fixed figure per every nurse hour they supply to the HCA hospital.
Since these nursing staffing and travel agencies are smaller, they pass more money to you as a traveler and they take better care of you than parallon would. Meaning, you are more likely to make more money and be happier working with parallon through a sub-vendor travel nursing agency.
They may require you to have meditech experience and in some cases, they may require you to have worked for HCA hospital in the past in some areas. In Dallas area, I know with certainty that they will train you on meditech for about 3 days. There have been words on the street that they are switching to epic charting system, a much better and modern charting system but this has not happened yet, at least as of January 2017.
You will require to take and pass Performance Based Development System (PBDS) nursing exam tailored to your area of practice. Most travel nursing assignments require a travel nurse to demonstrate competency anyway. PBDS is a walk in the park for most practicing nurses as it asks questions based on your work. However, like any exam, you need to prepare adequately to pass PBDS exam.
Looking at it in a good way, it gives you an opportunity to choose which hospital takes good care of you and work there more often. They also require you to be able to float downwards based on your level of competency. Example, critical care nurse may be required to float to a PCU or a step-down unit.
Too much about HCA hospitals and travel nurses. Of course, the reason I explained a lot about HCA hospitals is because it is one of the largest nurse employers in the world. In fact, HCA is the largest healthcare organization in the world and you need to keep your relationship healthy with such a big employer.