Cincinnati, OH rests in southern OH on the OH/KY border, and was one of the first American boom towns, expanding rapidly during the 19Th century despite being landlocked. It has also been called the first truly American city due to its location, as most coastal cities of the time were influenced by European culture.

Although Cincinnati's booming growth slowed by the end of the 19Th century, the city still has a lot of history and a lot to offer.

What to do in Cincinnati

Sports - If you're a baseball fan, you can check out the Cincinnati Reds, named for the first pro baseball team in the country. For you football fans, Cincinnati Bengals games are sure to be a great time.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center - This museum takes you behind the scenes and into the history books to celebrate the people who made the underground railroad possible.

The Contemporary Arts Center - This modern art museum hosts a wide variety of unique exhibits. Right now, you an check out American Idyll: Contemporary Art and Karaoke.

Where to Eat

Goodies Southern Style BBQ - This small BBQ joint boasts Cincinnati's best barbecue, check it out for lunch or dinner.

Primavista - Come for the elegance and awesome Italian food, stay for the best views of Cincinnati available anywhere in the city.

Jobs in Cincinnati
We are currently looking for help with several hospital based inpatient rehab positions, as well as an acute care position. These openings are for traveling physical therapists, but we occasionally see PTA travel positions here.
Skilled nursing is also well represented, call today for a detailed listing of needs in the area.

 When you begin the search for your next physical therapy job, you know from past experience that you will eventually

find something that will work for your situation. Sometimes the position you end up with isn't your ideal travel

assignment, but the market has made it clear that physical therapists are in demand and travel jobs are always

available.

However, over the past year I have seen a change in the marketplace when it comes to physical and occupational

therapy jobs. When I started recruiting for PT, OT, and SLP travelers, I could easily know when I spoke with a

traveler whether or not we would be able to help them find what they were looking for. Now, there is a large portion

of this marketplace that has gone competitive, with multiple agencies and facilities competing for the resources in

a particular area.

How do you as a traveler insure you get the job when there are other therapists competing with you?

For part one, we'll start with your agency. I wanted to give you tips from my point of view to help you build a

team that will take care of your best interests when it comes to your search. Agencies get paid by client facilities to fill needs, so a job search that goes nowhere means everyone loses. Here are a few simple tips:

First off, be realistic. Even though there is a shortage of physical therapists in this marketplace, I doubt you will find outpatient aquatic therapy on the beach in Key West. When you start any job search, find out what's most important to you....it will usu sally be one (sometimes a combination of two) of three major things: Location, Setting, or Money.

Location:  If the location is what's most important to you, let your agency know that it will be the make or break detail for your search. For example, if you need to be in Chicago and do not want to be outside of Chicago proper by even one mile, let your agency know. The best way to find out if you are really driven by location is to ask yourself these questions:  "If I found a job in Chicago that was less money than what I'm making now, would I still take it?"  or "If I found a job in Chicago that was in a setting I don't like, would I still take it?" If the answer is yes, then you know that the location is motivating your job search. 

Compensation: We all go to work because we want to make money, and I know that a lot of you travel because the money is so much better than the direct hire therapy market. I have seen lots of clients offer huge bonuses for travelers as well as large compensation packages. The only catch with a lot of these facilities are they are in very rural areas. (Think Amish country in PA, or extreme southern TX/AZ on the Mexican border) So if money is really driving you, ask yourself "If I found something that was more money than any other assignment I've seen, could I stand to be in (insert the least desirable location to you here)?"  If you answered yes, then you can let your recruiter know to bring back the highest paying jobs in the region or country and you will sign on with the highest bidder.

Setting:  This is the easiest decision for most of the traveling physical therapists I have worked with. Some therapists simply don't have a preference to setting, some have a dream setting or a nightmare setting. If you really love skilled nursing, ask yourself if you could stand 3 months in a hospital, on home health, or in outpatient if it meant a great location or better money?

I know these are pretty cut and dry estimates, but after asking yourself these questions, you should be able to put your agency on the same page with you. In most cases, agencies work with a combination of all three of these motivations, great agencies can take a list of jobs and drill down to one that will fit you. With your help in letting your agency know what suits you best as a therapist, you're on your way to a great travel therapy career.

One of the scariest issues you can deal with as a physical therapist traveler (or occupational therapist traveler for that matter) is being asked to do something unethical or outright illegal while you are on assignment. While a great deal of work is going into screening facilities before assigning therapists, there are always going to be some facilities out there that try to bend the rules.

The big question for you as a traveler is how do I protect myself? I wanted to give you all a little insight from an agency perspective on what steps you can take to insure you and your license are protected from any issues.

For this blog, I'm going to use a physical therapist traveler in a skilled nursing facility as an example. Let's say our traveler, who I will call "Jane", has been asked by the nursing staff or her rehab manager to change her notes and evaluations on a patient. What should Jane do?

The first thing you should remember in this situation is this: DO NOT TAKE ANY ACTION THAT YOU KNOW TO BE UNETHICAL AND ILLEGAL. I can't stress this enough.

Regardless of outside pressure or any other variables, when you do something as a therapist that you know is ethically wrong, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for the consequences. This means you could lose your license even if your manager ordered you to perform the action in question.

The next thing you should do is CONTACT YOUR AGENCY IMMEDIATELY.

Your recruiter is your biggest ally in this type of situation. Your agency can contact management outside of the facility or help you take the necessary steps to resolve the situation or move you to another facility if needed.
Some hospitals and major rehab companies have anonymous hot lines for ethical concerns, so if you feel uncomfortable with the situation and are concerned about management at your facility there are ways to address the issue that will allow you to do the right thing without making an uncomfortable situation more uncomfortable.

At the end of the day, remember that as a therapist, your job is to help people recover. Whether you're in outpatient, skilled nursing, or a hospital setting, if you are being asked to do something that seems unethical, chances are patient care is taking a backseat to other motivations. When you take action against this type of practice, you're helping the entire therapy community stay focused on patient care as a priority.

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about per diems, this tends to be one of the biggest blessings and biggest curses in this industry. Keep in mind, I am not a CPA or tax professional, so I won't be able to give you the exact letter of the law with a lot of this information. In any case, you should speak with an accountant or tax professional to make sure you are doing the right thing if you are unsure about your situation.

If you're new to travel, a per diem is a daily allowance for meals and incidentals that the government allows us to pay someone who is working away from home. This money is paid to you tax-free, so it's an easy way of getting an instant tax break on the expenses you incur while away from home. These per diem payments are only given to people who are duplicating housing expenses and working away from home, so if you're working locally and getting per diem, you might want to consult your tax professional to make sure it's legit. A good rule of thumb is 50 miles or more away from home, but like I said earlier, there are different laws and rules for each situation

Also, when looking at your per diems, it's unlawful for an agency to use the per diem rate as an hourly incentive. For example, it would be illegal for me to say "I am paying you x dollars an hour taxable wages, and y dollars per hour untaxable wages."   If you want to convert your daily per diem into an hourly equivalent, simply take the weekly amount and divide by the number of hours you’re working
Calculating per diems generally depends on where you're going, what the client is willing to pay, and how your company puts things together. The most important thing to keep in mind with per diems is that you are held responsible if you receive an illegal per diem. Most contracts will have a per diem agreement at the bottom that says something to the effect of "I am requesting per diems, I know what I can and can't do, and I take responsibility if the IRS knocks on my door." In some cases where there is a lot of per diem abuse, agencies will be audited, but it typically falls on the worker's shoulders.

Agencies are usually given a rate for each therapist that works for them, they have to put this rate together in a way that is an incentive to the traveler while being a legit offer for the market. Here's a quick example of a typical traveler's compensation. Let's say John Doe is a physical therapist with a few years of experience under his belt. We have a hospital client that wants John to help out for 13 weeks. Typically the money chain works like this. (Assuming John Doe wants something in the neighborhood of 30 dollars an hour)

Let's say the interview goes well, the hospital comes back with an offer for Joe at 37 dollars an hour all-inclusive. This means our budget for Joe would be 37 dollars an hour including housing.

Let's say Housing is going to cost us 7 dollars an hour. (7 x 40/hrs a week=280 4 weeks in a m.. 1120.)

Now that housing is out of the way, we can offer John 30 dollars an hour. Typically, you'll see something along these lines:

25.12 an hour taxable wages plus a per diem of 39 dollars a day paid for 5 days a week.

How much of a difference do those two numbers make?

Assuming we take the federal tax bracket that most of us are in and calculate federal tax only, at 30 an hour a paycheck would probably be about 892.00 a week after taxes. Taking that same tax bracket with the Per Diem package would leave you with a take-home pay of around 940 dollars a week. Although you would be paid less for the travel assignment, the compensation for your expenses would allow you to keep more of your hourly wages for you!

Per diems are a big part of the incentive to work as a traveler. In the next part of this discussion, I'll talk a little bit about the pitfalls of taking per diems. We'll discuss what to look out for, what to avoid, and what to ask for to help you get what you need.

I hope this info helps, let me know if you have any specific questions about this topic, or if you'd like to see another topic in the future. And don't forget to sign up to receive our jobs in your inbox using the form on the right side of this page!

Working as traveling physical therapists or traveling on occupational therapy jobs or even SLP jobs is a great career move for a new grad fresh out of school. Some people are sure where they want to be when they start their careers, some people have student loan debt to pay off, and some people want to gain a lot of experience in on various allied health jobs in a short amount of time before settling into a permanent position. In this entry, I'm going to discuss a few things about the travel industry, the perks, the drawbacks, and some of the urban legends we hear every summer when the new grads hit the market. Hopefully this will help you in your search for a perfect assignment to get started in this business.

First off, some locations simply do not have a lot of assignments to offer. Keep in mind that when a hospital or SNF calls an rehab staffing agency to fill PT jobs, OT jobs or SLP jobs, it is their last resort. This means they have tried job fairs, word of mouth, websites, marketing, and anything else they can possibly think of to find someone for their facility. Once they decide to take a traveler, this means the market in their area does not have a lot of rehab therapists looking for work. Keeping that logic in mind, places like Hawaii won't have as many options as a small town in MO. A lot of the allied health jobs we see on a regular basis are in rural towns. Occasionally companies will see positions in larger desirable cities, (Chicago, IL, Phoenix, AZ, Los Angeles, CA, Atlanta, GA, etc.) but you have to keep in mind that these clients aren't as desperate to find rehab therapists, so their rates might be lower. Remember the rule of supply and demand when you're seeking a position and it will make your traveling career a lot easier.

Second, you might not be able to secure the type of clinical setting you want right out of school. Every year, we get recent graduates that are seeking outpatient ortho and sports medicine positions. While these positions DO exist, they are very difficult for a recent grad to land. The reasons behind this are different with each situation, but what we hear the most of is experience. If a manager reads your resume and sees that your only experience with outpatient is a clinical rotation coupled with the fact that this will be your first position, he or she may not bring you on for travel therapy jobs because your skill set might not be ready for his or her facility.

Managers want a therapist that will be able to hit the ground running and pick up a caseload from day one. In an outpatient ortho setting, this usually means you will be the only physical therapist or occupational therapist in the building. If you end up in this situation, you will have a hard time getting up to speed if you have questions about a patient or procedure because the facility will not have the support for you. My biggest recommendation to people looking for outpatient is to take an inpatient/outpatient mix in a larger hospital to allow you to get the experience on your first rotation in order to build your resume.

Third, try to limit the number of rehab staffing recruiters/agencies you are using in your job search. Granted, a lot of travelers use 2 agencies on each search for therapy jobs, but sometimes we see recent grads using four, five, even six agencies to help them find a position in a small area around a city or town. The reason you don't want to use too many agencies is simple, there are only so many facilities in the area you want to work in, if you have 5 companies calling on your behalf, you'll have a hard time know what kind of ground you've covered and what agencies might be duplicating efforts. Another thing to keep in mind is avoiding a situation we call a double-submittal.

If you allow two rehab staffing agencies to submit your resume to the same hospital or SNF, that facility will think either A.) you are getting desperate to find a job, which could mean there is a reason you're still looking, or B.) One of the companies you are working with is unethical. If a facility sees you or the agency representing you in a bad light, it will make it a lot harder for you to land allied health jobs. The easiest way to correct this problem is to pick your top two, maybe three agencies. When you speak with your recruiter, ask him or her to get your permission before submitting to a facility. When you do this with a recruiter, you will be able to keep a running list of every facility your resume has been submitted to and what the status was. This will help you know the market where you are looking as well as show you which agencies are going to bat for you versus which agencies are trying to make a quick placement.

Finally, being skeptical when talking to rehab staffing agencies is a good thing. There are a lot of agencies out there that will promise you huge bonuses, amazing compensation packages and the most exotic locations in order to get you to take rehabilitation jobs with them. Nine times out of ten, these promises eventually get 'flipped' to another location, less money, or no bonus at all. Make sure you are getting any promises that seem too good to be true in writing before you go, you are the reason these companies exist, don't fall victim to a cheap sales tactic.

Keeping these things in mind will help you start your career as a traveling physical therapist/traveling occupational therapist off on the right foot. There are a lot of agencies seeking folks for PT jobs, OT jobs, and SLP jobs, and with a little research, you can be on your way to a great situation!

Okay, so now that we know a little bit of background regarding compensation and a few tricks to get the money in front of you, how do we make it all make sense? This part of the discussion will give you the tools you need to find the elusive bottom line. A lot of companies will put money in a lot of different things to hide your compensation from you, or use a one-time payments to distract you from the bottom line. Here are three important things to always keep in mind when looking at an offer.

First, you're working 40 hours per week in a typical assignment. (Obviously)
Second, a typical 13 week assignment is an estimated 520 hours.
Finally, there are an average of 4.2 weeks per calendar month.

Using these two numbers you can easily break down a compensation package and get right to business on how much you should shoot for. This number will also help you if you ever have another offer coming in. No two offers are the same in this business, so it really helps to know how to break down the spin and look at the bottom line. A company may call you with a PT job offer that sounds great initially, but it could be set up to be a little lower pay with much higher spin. Let's go back to the example we were using in part one of this discussion.

Let's say a company calls you and has a great travel therapy job offer he/she wants to extend from the client. To keep things simple, let's say the assignment starts 1/7/08 and ends 4/4/2008. Here's how it breaks down:

24.50 dollars an hour taxed wages.
30 dollars a day over 7 days (tax-free) for your per diem
1200 dollars a month housing allowance
500 dollar sign-on bonus
250 license reimbursement
250 travel reimbursement

Now, company two has the following offer for you in a similar facility in the same general area.

22.50 an hour taxed wages
30 dollars an hour paid for 7 days a week (tax free) per diem
60 dollars a day paid for 7 days a week (tax free) housing
No sign-on bonus
250 License reimbursement
250 Travel reimbursement

Which one is the better deal? Let's dissect them and find out.

Starting with option A, the taxed wages are much higher at 24.50 an hour. When looking at the per diem, (30 a day over 7 days per week - 30 X 7 = 210 / 40[hrs per week]= 5.25 an hour.

Now we're sitting pretty at 29.75 an hour.

Next, let's take a look at the housing they're offering you. At 1200 dollars per month, it seems like a lot of money. Let's try to break this down per hour:
1200 per month, divided by 4.2 weeks per average month, divided by 40 hours per week. (1200/4.2)/40 = 7.14. That's 7.14 an hour for your housing. Let's keep our total front and center as we keep on truckin'

Now we're at 36.89 an hour.

Now let's look at the bonus, reimbursements, and other one time payments. This contract is offering a 500 dollar sign-on bonus in hopes you'll jump on it to get the fast cash. How much is 500 really worth in the grand scheme? Not as much as you may think. 500 / 520(hours in a 13 week assignment) = 96 cents an hour.

Next we have the 250 licensure reimbursement: 250/520(hours) = 48 cents an hour.

Finally, the 250 travel reimbursement, which is also 48 cents an hour.

Our grand total for offer A is 38.81 an hour

Now let's take a look at offer B. Just skimming over the numbers, it looks like offer B is less because the taxed wages are lower and there is no bonus, but take a closer look at the breakdown:

22.50 taxed wages

Same per diem as before, which is 5.25 an hour if you were to look at it as an hourly rate.

Our running total is 27.75 an hour so far.

60 a day over 7 days for housing. How does this stack up against 1200 a month? 60 X 7 = 420 a week, divide that by 40 hours and the hourly total would be 10.50 an hour.

Our running total now is 38.25 an hour. We're already neck and neck with the previous offer.

After adding in 250 license and 250 travel at .48 an hour each, our new grand total comes to a 39.21.

The assignment that looks like less at first glance is actually paying about 2000 dollars a year more than the assignment with a big sign-on bonus. Keep this in mind when you're looking at your next offer and talk to your recruiter. If your recruiter is good at what he or she does, they will be happy to work within this bottom-line perspective because it actually makes it much easier on everyone involved.

I hope this helps!

Okay, time for another discussion involving everyone's favorite aspect of any industry - Money. Let's talk dollars and cents to get a better grasp on comparing companies and the compensation packages they offer. This info will be useful whether you are a seasoned physical therapist traveler or just getting a start in the business of travel thearpy jobs.

We all know that there are a lot of different companies out there. These range from the big national companies with billion dollar revenues to small 'mom and pop' operations that could be operating out of someone's basement. Most companies would have you believe that they can pay more than the next guy, but in reality, most of the compensation packages I see are generally in the same market range. If a company really had something that was a lot more money than the next guy, do you think they would be able to keep it a secret for long?

This brings us to this discussion. How do you know you're getting the best offer, and how does your company break it down to you? To understand how the compensation breaks down, you have to understand both sides of the industry. Let's start from the facility or 'client' side. (We'll call them client for this discussion to avoid confusion....and to help me save a few keystrokes)

When a client contacts an agency for help, they already have a pretty good idea of the rate they will be paying for a therapist. I'm not saying that every client's rate is set in stone, but it's harder to up the rate with some clients. For example, a client in a popular city like Phoenix, AZ or Chicago, IL might not pay as much for a physical therapist traveler as a small town like Sidney, OH or Webster Springs, WV. (Had to find two random small towns.....) One of the big factors that brings a traveler's rate down in a large city is the housing costs involved. An apartment in the middle of a big city (that's in a nice part of town) is going to be a lot more expensive than an apartment in the middle of nowhere, so to speak. When more money is going to the apartment, there is less money left over for compensation.

How do you know you're getting the best deal? Ask your recruiter for the rate you would get if you were to handle your own housing. A lot of travelers opt for a monthly allowance or daily housing per diem in lieu of housing, and sometimes it's a better deal. I know a lot of you don't want to find your own apartments and like having things ready for you once you get there....I'm not advising anyone to bite off more than they can chew, however, this unmasks the mysterious 'housing budget' so you can see the compensation package as the big picture. You can always tell your recruiter that you'll just take housing from the company after you compare apples to apples. Just make sure you're giving your company enough time to get your housing secured.

Using this tool when working on your next contract will help you see the deal from a bird's eye view. You can estimate how much money housing will cost, and use that info to make a better decision between job A in a big city and job B in a small town.

That's all for this entry, part two of this series is coming up next. In the next article, we'll dig deeper into some simple math that will allow you to take any compensation package and break it down to a grand total rate. Thanks for reading!

The relationship between a traveling therapist and their recruiter varies from person to person. To some, recruiters are a necessary evil in a market that is strained for talent. To others, recruiters are a lifeline that keeps them stable. If you are simply using your recruiter as a way of finding a position, you could be missing out on everything this person has to offer.

With that being said, I wanted to give everyone out there a few tips on getting the most of out your relationship with your recruiter.

Your recruiter is your employee. Make sure you're getting the most out of him or her by constantly updating him or her on your situation. What your recruiter doesn't know can ultimately end up hurting your chances of finding a good fit, or getting the highest pay available to you. Communicate with your recruiter and help this person understand what's motivating you on your search. You never know what small detail could mean the difference between a great fit or 13 weeks of torture.

Therapists have different needs when it comes to working with a recruiter. Have a conversation with your recruiter up front to set the groundwork for this relationship. Do you want a recruiter that's going to check up on you every month, week, or day? Do you want a recruiter that will find a good fit for you with good pay and not call you back until it's time to think about the next move? Taking a few minutes to go over what you expect of your recruiter will pay off in the long run. After your recruiter knows your needs, he/she will be able to fine tune your future searches based on your standards.

As always, keep in mind your recruiter will go to bat for you whenever you ask, but you have to ask. If you are interviewing for an assignment and you're not sure how things will go, ask your recruiter for some tips. Chances are he or she will be able to coach you on how to interview with a certain client to make sure you have a better shot at landing the position. Whenever I mention using your recruiter to get info or assistance that's above and beyond, it reminds me of a physical therapist traveler I worked with at the beginning of my staffing career. This person (let's call her "Julie") wanted to go to the mountains in CO for her next assignment because she was an avid rock climber. When we found potential assignments for Julie, I would look up rock climbing locations in the area for her to help her decide which job would be the best bet. Julie ended up accepting a job in New Mexico due to the shortage of open physical therapy positions in CO at the time. The main reason she decided to take New Mexico over the possibility of CO was because she knew there was some great rock climbing in the area. This was a compromise on both ends, and it wouldn't have been possible had I not known what was motivating Julie to travel.

Next time you are contacting your recruiter for your job search, try to use some of these tips. Communication is key, and if your recruiter knows you well, he or she will work much harder for you. When you are using your recruiter to his or her full potential, you will end up with positions that will keep you happy while you're doing what you love.