Aya Healthcare Travel Nursing Agency Review 2023

Since its inception in 2001, Aya Healthcare travel nursing agency has grown into one of the best-known agencies in the country.

A quick internet search of Aya Healthcare shows that the company relies heavily on its reputation for size and quantity of available assignments. It also boasts an impressive use of technology to give nurses the best access to openings anytime, anywhere.

This ability to easily connect healthcare workers with available work nationwide is what president and CEO Alan Braynin envisioned when he started the company at just 27 years old.

Based in San Diego, California, the company now has over 1100 employees and an enormous network of opportunities all over the United States.

They prioritize the health and wellness of employees by providing access to things like healthy food and fitness options.

Aya Healthcare not only offers a great employment experience for clinical employees, but its recruitment and office staff as well. 

Why Choose Travel Nursing With Aya Healthcare?

Above all else, Aya Healthcare aims to make connecting travel nurses with ideal positions easy.

The sheer number of available assignments is huge, and there are currently over 50 thousand openings on their site. This is thanks to the quantity of hospitals and other facilities in their network.

Due to this wide selection, Aya can find the right contract for just about any nurse on their roster.

What Does Aya Healthcare Provide?

When signing on for travel nursing with Aya Healthcare, nurses get a full team behind them to handle details that often cause stress and take focus away from their day-to-day nursing duties.

Aya Healthcare provides:

  • Housing options
  • Assistance with compliance and licensing
  • A recruitment team to offer guidance with the goal of making the absolute best matches on contracts

A team specifically designated to handle payroll issues makes sure that nurses and other workers get paid accurately and on time.

How Much Does Aya Healthcare Pay?

As with any industry, the overall experience and rate of pay varies among nursing specialties.

Aya strives to make expectations for nurses clear and appropriate, while offering a wide variety of opportunities.

Some nurses prefer complicated and undesirable assignments due to generally higher pay, while others prefer a more easygoing experience and are happy to leave some money on the table.

Generally speaking, the most openings will be in departments like:

  • ER
  • ICU
  • Med-surg

However, nurses should have no problem find what they want if they are flexible with variables like:

  • Pay
  • Location
  • Shift/schedule

Who Is Eligible To Work With Aya Healthcare?

To be eligible for travel nursing assignments with Aya Healthcare, nurses must have at least one year of hospital nursing experience under their belt.

Assignments range anywhere between six weeks and six months, with the average contract being about 13 weeks.

Aya Healthcare Travel Nursing Agency Reviews

Online reviews of Aya Healthcare from their travel nurses are largely positive. They have a four-star rating on Google, Facebook, and Indeed. This highlights Aya Healthcare’s claim that their travel nursing process is easy and reliable.

Here are 3 testimonials from travel nurses that worked with Aya Healthcare:

“Aya has been wonderful to work for!! It is the only travel company I have worked for that supported me during the time I was sick with COVID. They always line me up with my next assignment and answer all my questions.”

Karen Laney, Google review

“I have a great recruiter and awesome team. There was only one instance of a hiccup in payroll but that was taken care of. There’s always jobs available at Aya. I’m registered with several travel agencies but I have worked 90% this year with Aya.”

Travel Nurse (Former Employee), Indeed review

“Working for Aya was absolutely the best experience in all of my years of traveling. You’re not going to find a better company than Aya.”

Tracey Collins Gates, Facebook review

With such a large network, there are lots of reviews for Aya Healthcare. These highlight exactly what real nurses think about their travel experiences with the company.

Pros And Cons of Aya Healthcare Travel Nursing Agency

There are quite a few benefits to working with Aya Healthcare travel nursing agency. Some of them include:

  • America’s largest travel agency
  • Benefits from the first day: 401k, medical, sick pay
  • Credentialing support
  • Clinical ladder program and nurse education
  • Flexible housing: company housing option or stipend
  • Use of technology to match clinicians with assignments

As with any agency, there are also a few drawbacks, including:

  • Poor response time and communication from recruiters and support
  • Company size results in less personal attention

6 Benefits of Travel Nursing with Aya Healthcare

Let’s first look closer at the advantages of working with Aya Healthcare.

1. Selection

The greatest benefit of working with Aya Healthcare is definitely the size of the company’s network.

Nurses can’t say enough about how easy it is to find jobs when and where they want them. With travel nursing, there are often tradeoffs such as:

  • Great pay for undesirable assignments
  • Great company resources and personalization at the expense of having far fewer options

However, Aya Healthcare seems to have it all where choices are concerned.

2. Immediate Benefits

The availability of benefits like healthcare, 401k, and accruing sick pay from day one are very popular benefits.

The life of a travel nurse is often an uncertain one. This means having benefits from the moment you start your assignment eliminates some stress.

3. Help With Credentials

Any nurse knows that certifications and credentialing can be a pain, especially with renewals and requirements with staggered timelines.

Paperwork can be excessive, and some of it often falls through the cracks. This can result in extra work with rushed deadlines.

Aya Healthcare offers credentialing support that’s invaluable in the life of a travel nurse. They:

  • Monitor your credentials
  • Handle your paperwork
  • Make sure that when you walk into your assignment, you’re good to go

4. Education Assistance

Aya Healthcare encourages nurse education and career progression, and they follow through with helping to make it happen.

The travel nursing agency offers scholarships to qualifying nurses. They also offer a pool of free and unlimited continuing education options for nurses signed with the company.

Additionally, they have a clinical ladder program to help their nurses progress and succeed. The program includes nursing association memberships. It also includes assistance with tuition and loan repayment, eliminating common roadblocks to nursing career progression.

5. Technology

One of Aya Healthcare’s main selling points is their use of technology to quickly and easily find ideal matches for nurses.

This enables advanced searches of an extensive database. These searches can be done by both the company in the office and by nurses at home.

This results in the ability to locate the best assignment according to all your desired specifications.

Aya Healthcare also uses their app to fill per diem nursing requests. This gives nurses the option to easily pick up shifts above and beyond their contracted assignments.

6. Aya Healthcare Housing Stipend

The last benefit worth noting is Aya Healthcare’s flexible housing options.

They offer fully-paid company housing. This provides travel nurses easy access to clean, comfortable housing.

You can arrive for your assignment and walk into a fully furnished home for the duration of your assignment without having to do any of the leg work.

However, if you prefer to locate and select housing yourself, Aya Healthcare also offers the option of a housing stipend to use as you wish.

Either way, the company does a great job of taking the stress out of finding housing for your assignment.

3 Downsides of Travel Nursing With Aya Healthcare

As with any company, especially in healthcare, there are certainly some drawbacks that current and former Aya Healthcare nurses have shared.

We discuss 3 here.

1. Slow or Dropped Communication

The most-reported con to working with Aya Healthcare is that communication and support isn’t always as helpful or efficient as it claims.

Multiple reviews claim that some nurses made several efforts to contact both recruiters and support services for the company and received no response.

Clearly this isn’t always the case. Many more people have been incredibly satisfied with Aya Healthcare’s communication and support.

However, it’s certainly something to look out for if you may need a lot of assistance or have a lot of questions.

Communication issues are common in companies of Aya Healthcare’s size. It’s worth considering how important it is to feel like you can reach who you need, when you need them.

2. Less Personal

Another downside is the lack of personal attention that can result from working for such a large company.

This may not be an issue or even a consideration for many, as travel nurses are famously independent. After all, they can operate on the fly in even the most difficult or chaotic environments.

However, for newer nurses (even with the required year of experience), this may make it difficult to get well acquainted with the demands and expectations of travel nursing.

3. No Standardized Orientation

Aya Healthcare makes minimal guarantees regarding orientation. They explain that the quality of orientation offered at each assignment simply depends on the policies of individual facilities.

When faced with the newness of travel nursing in general (on top of orienting to a new facility and possibly a new specialty or department), Aya Healthcare is not ideal for most nurses embarking on their first travel nursing assignments.

Conclusion

All in all, Aya Healthcare is a solid, well-established travel nursing agency.

Their nurses generally report positive experiences and would recommend the company to other nurses looking for travel work.

Though it seems best-suited for travel nurses with some experience under their belt, Aya Healthcare has something to offer for anyone looking for flexibility and options.

Ready to begin your journey as a travel nurse? Then start traveling today!

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