Agency jobs???

How do agency jobs work? Do you pick your hours? Is the pay decent? Any benefits?How much experience do they require?
In Missouri the pay is 25 to40 per hour, for prn work. U pick the hours by telling the agency your availability. Usually one year experience required. Most will give benefits if you work full time. Some give retirement too. I don't know of any that give tuition help

I am not speaking for all agencies. In general, you fill out an application online or email a resume. You meet with one of their representatives to discuss your experience, availability and interests. Then, they call you if you meet the requirements of an opportunity that they have available. Agencies want a minimum of one year experience, some say two. The pay hourly is the same as someone who works in the facility. For instance, if you work as a school nurse, through the agency you would make the same hourly amount as the staff nurse. A few agencies do have benefits if you work with them for a number of hours or cases. The hours are based on your availability. If you say you only have weekend availability, the agency will only call you for a weekend assignment, if there is one available.

It depends - if you are working in the hospital the wages are good. If they send you to a home health case, pretty low. I have worked a HH case or two in the last couple years and despite 20 years of nursing I made 1/2 of what I make working in the schools (or when I worked in the hospital). And that was with because I had worked for the agency in the past, and was per diem.

The pay is different from agency to agency. The problem is if its medicaid Homehealth case, the pay is really low ($20-23) in NY. I have done it. The pay is only higher if they send you to a location that fills in for their staff

Oh, another thing. With home health, it depends if you do "hourly" care ie a shift at someone's home, or "home visits" - doing things like dressing changes, IV meds or dressing changes and other things that are done in the community after a person is DC's from the hospital. Don't get me wrong - I loved doing HH - both the hourly side and the visit side. When I was single and childless I didn't care so much about the pay, but being a single mom with 3 kids I really had to change to something that was more steady.

Quote from Devie06How do agency jobs work? Do you pick your hours? Is the pay decent? Any benefits?How much experience do they require?

I have a friend that signed up with an agency. They paid him $24/hr, which is an excellent wage for a LPN/LVN, they hired him to work at a state prison. The agency was paying him for a couple of months then the state decided to hire him. The agency helped him get his foot in the door, but minimum requirement (usually) is 1 yr experience.

No one uses any agency where I am located for anything. Years ago I made $50 hr on Easter sunday to work 12 hr L&D shift. My reg pay was $16/hr.. It was neat but I do not like the starting fresh every where you go idea. I like having a home base.

I took a significant pay cut to work agency. It took several weeks to get going with hours cause they had to do a background check. then you have some orientation time at some facilities (4 hours if you are lucky). I give them my availability and wait for a call every morning at 0445ish to find out if I am working that day. I really hate the uncertainty of it but right now that is best for me. Most agencies charge a facility a "finders fee " if they offer an agency nurse a job and hire them away from their agency.

Any agency nurses in Oklahoma on this forum? Please share your experience with me.

Huh, I didn't know that about the finders' fee. Our agencies around here typically pay 28-35 depending on the exact location, and offer NO benefits. Sometimes the place, such as a prison, will demand extensive orientation type training and the pay for that might only be $10/hour. To put it in perspective, I think most nursing jobs around here are about $23/hour with benefits and maybe ~$25-28 PRN. Times are tough these days! One thing about an agency: we have to pay our own taxes, workers comp, liability insurance, and costs of testing that each facility requires (such as background screen, fingerprints, UDS)