Traveling Physical Therapy Explained

My wife accepted a job as a traveling physical therapist, and since it core to our writings here, I thought I would take a moment to explain it.

Traveling physical therapists are essentially temporary employees for healthcare. A healthcare facility will employ travelers for a variety of reasons, including:

• To fill an opening while they look for a permanent employee
• To fill an opening created by an employee on a temporary leave such as disability or pregnancy
• To "try-out" an employee for a potential permanent position
• To help healthcare facilities deal with unexpected spikes in patient case load

Generally, traveling physical therapy assignments are 13 weeks in length. As a result, many physical therapists do not view this as a viable option, either because of local concerns that keep them in one location, or a desire to not uproot their lives every 3 months.

For those who have a desire to travel while working, it can be an excellent opportunity. Generally most assignments pay similar to permanent positions, as well as many other benefits:

• Housing is provided at a nearby location to the facility
• Travel costs to and from the assignment are covered
• A per-diem for food and other incidentals is generally paid to the employee

These benefits are in addition to standard medical, dental, and retirement benefits offered by permanent placements as well.

As an assignment is nearing completion, the physical therapist can have their traveling company start working on getting their next assignment. There appears to be more traveling physical therapist positions at any given time than there are physical therapists willing to travel for work, so work is fairly consistent.

We have both concluded that we do not want to do this permanently. However, as we are young now, it is a good option for us in the short-term. Although honestly, a majority of the people we have spoken with about traveling loved it so much that they were hard pressed to not continue. So we will see what happens.