Hospital Canceled My Travel-Nurse Assignment! Now What Do I Do?!

I completed a week’s worth of orientation at a hospital and one shift of working in the NICU on my own. As I was preparing for the next shift, I noticed a missed call from my recruiter, which was highly unusual because my recruiter never called during my assignments, unless something was important or something was wrong. He usually only texted important information or texted to check-in with me, from time to time.

Before I got the chance to call the recruiter, I received a text message in the NICU group chat indicating the NICU travel-nurse assignments had been canceled. I had so many mixed emotions. On one hand, I was glad that I did not have to work that night, but on the other hand, I was livid because I was temporarily out of a job! Then, I became outraged because the cancellation was effective immediately, stating “Your services are no longer needed.”

I feel as if the hospital should have known that our services were not needed long before we left our hometowns and dished out all of our money to get there! As you can see, I am getting upset all over again, ugh. It seemed like my recruiter was more upset than I was! So now what?! Let me tell you what I did and what the outcome was for me in this situation.

Here are some helpful tips on what to do if your assignment is canceled:

1. Notify Landlord

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Get in contact with the landlord, leasing manager or hotel manager, ASAP! Let them know your situation, and you both should figure out a plan on how to proceed. In my situation, the landlord was sort of lagging and slow with responding. Therefore, the healthcare agency wrote a letter stating the situation, and I sent their letter to the landlord, as well. Make sure you DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT every encounter with the landlord and follow up with written confirmation of all conversations, e.g., text messages, emails and/or written letters.

2. Travel Reimbursement

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If your recruiter does not call you, call them ASAP! Any amount of money you put towards going on the assignment e.g., payment for flights, auto transportation, security deposits, etc., should be backed up with receipts. Save and send all of those receipts to your recruiter. The recruiter will request that the Reimbursement Team forward a reimbursement form to you to list all of your expenses, in order to get your money back.

It was a very unfortunate, scary situation for me, but thankfully this particular assignment was located closer to my hometown than usual. I drove home a couple of days later and tried to figure out my next move. Thank goodness I was able to find an assignment a month later, with the help of my awesome recruiter, that paid better and was in a better location!

Did this help? Has this ever happened to you?!