Do companies exist that offer sabbaticals to nurses working remotely?
Having a paid sabbatical as part of a company benefit package sounds unheard of to most nurses. It’s already an uncommon perk, but it seems even more far-fetched to most bedside nurses!
With nurse burnout on the rise, nurses are seeking ways to recharge, travel, and add more flexibility to their lives. Finding a company that promotes this lifestyle with a paid sabbatical perk is a huge bonus in my book! When I started taking longer breaks between travel nursing contracts, I realized how much better I felt going into my next contract. I was essentially creating a sabbatical for myself to combat the burnout.
Researching companies and the benefits they offer that are a step up from what most hospitals offer nurses became one of my top priorities when I decided to nail down a remote nursing job for myself. I quickly discovered that this can be a cumbersome process, and it felt like looking for a needle in a haystack!
It seemed like everywhere I looked, I could only find a sprinkle of a company here and there that offered this benefit for nurses while also offering remote work options. Talk about a time investment to search through these lists! I have to admit, I started to think about leaving nursing altogether after seeing the amazing benefits other professions are getting from their companies that an overwhelming majority of nurses are not! I started to get really discouraged.
But if there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’m persistent. Eventually, I found a nice bank of companies that not only offered this unique benefit but also hired nurses to work remotely or hybrid.
Blue Shield of California | BCBS CA
Employees receive a 4-week paid sabbatical after 5 years of continuous service. Nurses (RNs & LPNs) can often find remote and hybrid roles at this company in utilization management and case management, along with some quality and auditing roles.
One Medical
Amazon is known for offering great employee benefits, but it is less known that nurses can also work for an Amazon-owned company, One Medical. Employees get a paid 4-week sabbatical in their 5th, 10th, and 15th years. A variety of remote and hybrid nurse (RNs & NPs) roles have been offered at this company. They often have case management roles posted but have also hired nurses for chart review, care coordinator, and prior authorization positions.
Strive Health
Strive Health recently partnered with Humana in a multi-state agreement to offer their services to specific plan members living with kidney disease. Along with a ton of other great benefits, employees receive a 4-week paid sabbatical leave benefit. Nurses (RNs & LPNS) can often find fully remote case management roles at this company. Some other roles that have been open in the past are quality/compliance, enrollment, and prior authorization roles. Some of the case manager roles may require some travel, but not all of them have in the past.
Evolent
“Evolent partners with health plans and providers to ensure that treatment plans align with clinical evidence, as well as members’ goals and preferences while ensuring care is affordable.” Full-time, salaried employees at Evolent receive a paid one-month sabbatical every 5 years. RNs and LPNs are often hired for utilization management/review remote roles at this company. A few other roles RNs or LPNs have been hired for are behavioral health UM, Health Educator, and Care Advisor with OB/Maternal experience.
Aledade
Aledade is a US nationwide physician led Accountable Care Organization (ACO). Their employees receive a 6-week sabbatical for every 6 years of continuous employment. They have hired nurses (RNs, LPNs, and NPs) for various remote and hybrids roles such as, Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI), Case Management, Transformation Specialist, Risk Adjustment, Quality and Coding roles to name a few.
Bonus Company
Osmosis
Osmosis, part of Elsevier, the well-known education publisher, produces educational content for healthcare professionals. This company hires doctors and nurses to create and review the various types of educational content they create. Regular and fixed-term contract employees receive a sabbatical, but their website doesn’t provide any additional information regarding the length of time for the sabbatical. This company has also been known to advertise in some of their contract remote jobs that nurses can be location-independent anywhere in the world!
The Takeaway
I think this benefit perk is gaining attention, and more companies are starting to offer it to retain employees. But it would be great if companies would show off their amazing benefits on their career pages! Sometimes, you’ll find this information in places other than their careers page, like Facebook groups, Indeed, Glassdoor reviews, or sometimes listed in the company job descriptions.
It’s one of the reasons I created the Remote Company Directory, available inside the Premium Membership. I started a list of companies during my remote nursing job search in 2018, and it has massively expanded to a directory of over 700+ remote nurse and biotech companies! This easy-to-search and filter directory makes finding these companies so much quicker! Nurses can review benefits, along with closed job listings that include titles, descriptions, and salary information (no more wondering what job titles these companies use for remote nursing jobs!). This directory is growing daily so that members can quickly zoom in on which remote nurse companies offer the types of benefits and career paths they are searching for.
Unfortunately, hospitals still lag behind in providing this benefit to a profession struggling with retention and burnout at the bedside. A paid sabbatical is an amazing benefit that could not only help retain nurses but drastically reduce the burnout most are dealing with now more than ever.
If you’re interested in learning how to make your own sabbatical happen or you work at a company that is considering offering a paid nurse sabbatical program, be sure to check out the coaching and consulting services offered by Amy at The Nurse Sabbatical!
Remote Nurse Connection is proudly Ad-free. All opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read full disclosure here.
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