Why Work as a Per Diem PT?

Flexibility! Isn’t that the only reason? Well, for many of the reasons people choose to work per diem, it does often come down to flexibility. But there are many other reasons to work as a per diem physical therapist or physical therapist assistant.

You may work per diem to:

• Explore various settings
• Prevent burnout
• Earn extra income
• Maintain your license
• Maintain your skills
• Have flexibility

What Does Per Diem Mean?

Technically per diem means “for each day”. In many industries, this refers to an allowance paid to employees for lodging, meals, and incidental expenses incurred when traveling.

In health care, it has come to have a similar definition to PRN, which is latin for “pro re nata” or as needed. Both terms generally refer to a position in which hours are not guaranteed and benefits are either not offered or are quite limited. If you are hired as a per diem or PRN physical therapist, you are offered work when the facility has a need. And you can choose to say yes or no.

How Does Per Diem Work?

Per diem physical therapy professionals are hired to fill a need for increased staff. Such as when the census is higher than normal, or to cover vacation or sick time. Per diem work is usually unpredictable as these needs can be inconsistent.

An employer may ask you to work weeks in advance, the day before, or even the morning of the day they need you. You may find a facility that offers you some type of regularly “scheduled” per diem work but that isn’t usually the norm.

While you ultimately get to say yes or no to the work that is offered, there are a few things to keep in mind that may be out of your control.

Some positions have a weekend or holiday requirement even for per diem employees. And if you have a weekend requirement for multiple jobs, you might end up working more weekends than you’d like.

Facilities can cancel your shift. Even if the facility schedules you ahead of time because they anticipate a need for coverage, things can change and they can cancel ahead of time or even at the last minute.

Why Choose to Work as a Per Diem Physical Therapist?

Most of us are taught to follow the traditional path in life: grow up, go to college, get a “good” job, work full time, do it for 40 years, retire. I was taught that too, directly and indirectly. Despite graduating from physical therapy school before the days of social media and influencers telling you there can be another way, somehow I knew there had to be another way.

Explore various settings

I graduated at a time when full time jobs were few and far between. So I learned about per diem work early on. By working per diem and part time in different settings, I had the chance to experience acute care, outpatient and skilled nursing all within my first few years of working. It might seem difficult to not be able to focus on one setting, but it actually allowed me to find my love for acute care.

You may also want to get some experience in a new setting without fully committing to it when you are considering changing from one setting to another. Maybe acute care is becoming too physically demanding or you feel over scheduled in outpatient, but you aren’t sure about home health. You can always look for a per diem job to test the waters and see if a new setting might be a better fit.

Prevent burnout

While I can’t guarantee working per diem will help you avoid or recover from burnout, I can tell you that it has definitely helped me enjoy my work more.

I love working in acute care and I loved working almost exclusively in the ICU and CVICU at the hospital I worked at for 9 years. There is no better way to collaborate with the interdisciplinary team and actually feel like you are making a difference.

I did not love that we were chronically understaffed and lacked the equipment we needed to do what was best for the patients. There was always too much to do and too little time to do it.

Even at the same job, switching from full time to per diem but working almost full time hours made a huge difference. It was so much easier to deal with everything when I chose to work four 10 hour days in a week than when I *had* to. And if it became too many in a row, it was easy to work 8s or three days when I needed to.

Currently, I work as a per diem PT in three different locations which also means I never get too caught up in the daily frustrations of a full time job. If the census at one of the hospitals is high and the days feel hectic, I’m less overwhelmed because I’m only doing it for a few days. If patients are difficult to schedule or have complicated social situations in home health, I’m less frustrated because again, it’s generally only for a week or two at a time.

Earn extra income

Side hustles are popular right now, but what if you don’t want to start a business or work in the gig economy. If you work full time but want to pay off loans or contribute more to your savings, you can look for a few days of per diem work to accomplish those goals.

Or maybe you want to stay home with your kids for the most part but want to add to your family’s discretionary income. Working per diem when your spouse or partner is off or you have other child care options is a great way to do this.

Maintain your license

Many states only require CEUs to renew your license, but a few also have active practice requirements to maintain your physical therapy license.

If you’ve landed a coveted non clinical job but in a health care field, you may need to maintain an active license for your new position. Or you may just want to fall back on clinical work if the grass isn’t greener. Even if you left health care for what you hope is forever, you may still want to keep an active license “just in case”.

If you live in a state that requires active practice hours, a few per diem shifts a month will probably suffice. You can see if your state requires active practice hours on our CEU Requirements pages.

Maintain your skills

Working as little as one shift a month in a different setting from your primary job can help maintain your skills in that setting. I’ve known many outpatient orthopedic therapists who like to work per diem in an acute care since the skill sets are so different. (Of course I know some who never want to step foot in the hospital again. That works out for me since I don’t have to compete with them for my per diem hours!). I don’t personally know as many acute care or home health therapists that dabble in outpatient, but I’m sure it’s happened.

And of course, for the flexibility

Maybe you’ve been a traveler and you can’t stomach the idea of not being able to take long stretches of time off. Or you have a partner who has a non traditional work schedule and you don’t want to have to hope to be approved for time off that matches theirs.

Maybe you have kids in school but still want to be available for field trips or to help at their schools and don’t want to be committed to a set schedule. Or you could be like me and have weather dependent hobbies and want to be able to take advantage of the good weather windows when they happen.

Maybe you want to go back to school, or start a business. I think this list could go on and on. Whatever your reason for wanting more flexibility, working as a per diem physical therapist is a great way to get it.

Is Per Diem PT Right for You?

If any of these reasons to work as a per diem PT resonate with you, maybe it's time to consider it! There are many positives to working per diem. And of course, there are negatives as well. I mentioned the uncertainty of scheduling and the potential for last minute cancellations at the beginning of this post. You can read more about pros and cons in another post where I wrote about things to consider when working per diem to help you decide.