I Want To Be a Traveling Pelvic Health Therapist!

More About My Guest
Abby Huggenberger 

Her amazing recruiter is:
Justin Teeter
Ventura Medstaff
Work cell: (402) 252-5276 

____________________________________________________________________________________________
Pelvic OTPs United - Lindsey's off-line interactive community for $39 a month!
Inside Pelvic OTPs United you'll find:​

• Weekly group mentoring calls with Lindsey. She's doing this exclusively inside this community. These aren't your boring old Zoom calls where she is a talking head. We interact, we coach, we learn from each other.
  ​
• Highly curated forums. The worst is when you post a question on FB just to have it drowned out with 10 other questions that follow it. So, she's got dedicated forums on different populations, different diagnosis, different topics (including business). Hop it, post your specific question, and get the expert advice you need.

More info here. Lindsey would love support you in this quiet corner off social media!

Transcript

Lindsey Vestal My guest today is an absolute firecracker. So she has been on before. Actually, she was on episode number 23 back in October 2022, where she talked about after her field work placement with Reiki at Queen City Pelvic health. She got seven job offers. I bet you all have been wondering where Abby ended up. I know I have. She has taken on a job and become one of the first traveling pelvic health occupational therapists that I have ever met. And when you hear her talk about her negotiation skills and just how she's able to pay all of the riches that she's experiencing with this new job forward, I am so impressed with Abby's thoughtfulness and integrity. She's been a practicing pelvic floor therapist full time since she graduated a year and a half ago. And her undergraduate background is in mathematics. And I know you're not going to be surprised about that, because we do get into specifics and we do talk numbers today. And by numbers, I mean how she is able to negotiate an incredible salary. She takes her title of her fun, crazy single answer seriously and she tries to make an appearance at the most popular concerts. Comedy shows museums and restaurants in cities across the country. Never shy to make a stranger into a friend's. Let's get into today's conversation. And by the way, Abby does share the name and contact information for the recruiter that has now gotten her to pelvic floor therapy, traveling jobs. 

Intro New and seasoned OTs are finding their calling in Pelvic health. After all, what's more ADL than sex, peeing and poop? But here's the question. What does it take to become a successful, fulfilled and thriving O.T. in Pelvic health? How do you go from beginner to seasons and everything in between? Those are the questions and this podcast will give you the answers. We are inspired, OTs. We are out of the box, OTs. We are Pelvic health OTs. I'm your host, Lindsey Vestal, and welcome to the OTs and Pelvic health Podcast. 

Lindsey Vestal Okay, Abby. Thank you. Thank you for being a guest on the Hots for Pelvic health podcast. I know that you have recently taken on a job as a travel occupational therapist, specifically in Pelvic health, and I have so many questions about this because you are definitely the first person I have ever met to to embark on this really exciting journey. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got here? 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm the only traveling pelvic floor occupational therapist that I know. So if there's any more out there, I would love to meet them. But initially I in school had done clinical rotations towards the end of my degree that were outside of my home base, and I really liked traveling for those three month clinical rotations that I did in school and liked the places I saw. And I always kind of hoped that I could be a traveling therapist one day. But of course, even before I started school, I always knew all I wanted to do was pelvic floor therapy. So I was wondering how I could ever make those two things meet. And I was thinking, I'll just have to sacrifice the traveling side of things in order to be a pelvic floor therapist. And I won't even be mad about it because I'm going to be doing what I love. But after practicing for a year as a pelvic floor therapist right out of school, I was kind of thinking, I wonder if the demand is out there if I go looking for it to be a traveling pelvic floor therapist. And so that's where it all kind of began. And that's when I started to just kind of blindly start reaching out to as many recruiting companies as possible and just start asking very confused recruiters at times if there was a need for pelvic floor therapists. And that's kind of where it all began. Most recruiters that I would talk to would say kind of be a little confused about what I was asking. They weren't aware of what pelvic floor therapy was. They hadn't done contracts. And then I met a few people that were very yes, I filled contracts in that, or female recruiters that were like, Yeah, I've did pelvic floor therapy. I know pelvic floor therapy. And so I kind of weeded it down to like a few different contacts with the few different companies that I felt really comfortable with potentially pursuing a contract with. And that's kind of how it all started. 

Lindsey Vestal So it sounds like you were doing advocacy work while you were doing research because you had the opportunity to educate these recruiters that a, this was a specialty that existed, and B, that occupational therapists could absolutely be leaders in that field. That is so cool. 

Abby Huggenberger Yes. And honestly, the recruiters I worked with were all so, so, so amazing. And they want to work with you so badly. They communicate really well. I I've said before, if the devil works hard and Christian or works harder than recruiters probably work the hardest because they were always willing to meet me where I was at. And it took a little bit of back and forth because even the ones that were familiar with pelvic floor therapy and those contracts and outpatient therapy, they would kind of be a little curious as to where my jobs would pop up. And I would kind of tell them, listen, it will be a physical therapy job, but just put me in for it or put me in touch with the site. If you get me through, like I'll do the rest, I promise. Like, I'll figure out. I'll convince them that Otti is right for this role. So it was a little bit of abdicating, but it was also nice to work with sites that are really urgently trying to hire someone and as long as you can communicate with them, even if they're not familiar with occupational therapists doing pelvic floor therapy, if you convince them that you have the skills, you have the training and you're the person for the job, they want to get somebody in and filling the positions. So I think it was a really cool opportunity to be in O.T. and to be doing Pelvic health and not be questioned as much as potentially other jobs. 

Lindsey Vestal Well, I have to say, I'm not surprised to hear about your commitment and really I'll say tenacity to get this to fruition because listeners on the podcast may be familiar with your name. I had you on very early on. I think it was like one of the first 15 episodes on the podcast where you were on with Rocky and Rocky. You were a field student with Rocky, I think you had had like 7 or 8 job offers after your field work rotation. So you were in. Hot demand and obviously very passionate and very driven. So I have to say, like, I am not surprised that you that you actually pulled this off. I'm I'm so curious about how long do you think it took you between the point when you contacted recruiters and you actually started your first day? 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, that's a great question. So a lot of the recruiters I would contact would say reach back out to me at this point, reach back out to me at this point, because a lot of contracts come to fruition about a month or two before you're supposed to be there working the job. And so I had reached out probably 4 or 5 months before I was even looking to potentially leave my permanent job. And so they said, listen, you're kind of ahead of the curve a little bit. So if you touch base with us later down the line when we're actually seeing these positions pop up or when we can personally start doing some scouting and calling around for the demand, that would be a little bit easier to get you a reference. So I ended up getting contacted about. Actually about four months before I would start my first contract in travel therapy, I had one recruiter that was really scouting for me and scouting job offers, and he found a site for me in Delaware that was willing to set something up like four months in advance. And so I had something set up at that point. He put me in touch with the site. We did a video call and you're kind of just asking really basic questions of, okay, how long are your sessions with clients? What do you have around the clinic? Will I be the only pelvic floor therapist or are there others? What's your clientele usually look like? But aside from that, we would hang up the video call and all the communication as far as salary and pay and guaranteed hours and things like that would go through my recruiter. 

Lindsey Vestal Gotcha. Gotcha. And can you tell us a little bit about the site you ended up at? You know, you raised some good questions. Are you the only pelvic floor therapist there? You know? Yeah. Just tell us a little bit more about like the environment in the setting that you ended up getting your placement in. 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, absolutely. My first site and the one I'm at currently is a family chain of privately owned clinics. So there were 10 or 12 locations across Delaware and Maryland. And their goal was to have a pelvic floor therapist working out of each location. And the location that I was going to be at had two different pelvic floor therapists that would commute to it 1 or 2 days out of the week. And it was kind of a long commute for them in order to service that area. So I was going to be taking over those therapists and be a full time pelvic floor therapist there in like a permanent pelvic floor. Well, permanent as permanent as traveling is for that site specifically. So working here, I'm the only pelvic floor therapist in my building and I work with about three other orthopedic PTs. 

Lindsey Vestal And so I'd love to hear a little bit about, I guess, your onboarding experience. You know, it's obviously a little bit different when when you're traveling. And also, yeah. So tell us about the onboarding experience and also the experience of when you met your colleagues. So you're the only O.T. there. So tell us a little bit about how that went. 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, absolutely. So my director had told me in advance that I would have about a week of training, and she said that sometimes rare for travelers, but they really wanted me to feel settled, adjust to the EMR system. 

Break I'm so sorry for the interruption. Just a super quick announcement to share that even though the third annual OTs and Pelvic health summit has sold out for in-person tickets, recording tickets are available. Kelsey and I have brought in a professional videography team to make sure that every moment of this summit is captured. You can pick up your recorded tickets at www.functionalpelvis.com/ summits. Now back to the conversation and. 

Abby Huggenberger Even start getting introduced to some of the pelvic floor therapy therapy clients that I would be taking over just so they knew my face a little bit. So I got there on Monday and Monday through Friday. I just did documentation. I did a little bit of paperwork to kind of make sure we had everything finalized as far as me being in their system for taking Delaware insurances and things like that. Started getting used to the EMR system. My coworkers are all really, really nice and were really, really loving, which I was really worried about a little bit because you kind of hear things at times that sometimes travelers aren't as welcome or different things like that, but they've honestly been so kind and they have a lot of respect for what I do, and I have a lot of respect for what they do. And they they've even referred clients to me that they currently see. So it's just been a really kind of nice relationship to maintain with them. 

Lindsey Vestal That sounds like a dream come true. That is, I am. I am thrilled to hear that, Abby. I would love to hear a little bit about kind of like anything that surprised you about this experience. I know you you had a pretty hands on, intense, wonderfully intense experience with Reiki. How has the experience of now, you know, being a full time employee, having your first job, how did that compare to your field work experience? 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, that's a great question. I had kind of come from two separate experiences because during my student fieldwork I had been in private practice with Rocky working under her and seeing the whole business side of of that environment and her getting to create her own session lengths and really tailor everything and have full agency over her business, which was really cool. And it's also a huge labor of love and working after hours and a lot of business aspects that, you know, maybe not everybody appreciates or maybe a lot of people with the OTs and Pelvic health community do really appreciates, and that's a popular setting. And then I had gone after school to work in a hospital based system for a year, and I loved both. I loved the private practice, I loved working in the hospital based system and I was kind of wondering how traveling would be different and if it would be a lot worse or pretty equivalents. And I would say that the traveling experience in the clinic has been very equivalent to just like my hospital based job. I felt like the roles and responsibilities and my skills and the typical session length, which was 40 minutes where I'm at now and 45 minutes coming from the hospital setting, was very typical, and how many clients I would see in a day looked very similar. And then with the private practice experience, with my field work and with Rocky, it was just a lot more. It was longer times with clients. It was really getting to tailor everything that you do with clients a little bit more, just not having the headaches that sometimes you get with your typical day job, right? But one thing that was kind of married the two together between the hospital based and the private practice with the traveling is just the compensation and the financial aspect being so much higher. I know Rocky and a lot of people asked me after my private practice, clinical field work, do you want to own your own practice one day? And I honestly didn't really want to. I thought it was a lot of work. And one other big thing with it was just that with private practice, sometimes there's exclusions with treating the Medicare population, and I love working with the older adult population. So that's was kind of a perk of the hospital based and where I'm at currently with my traveling position. But it's honestly been a very similar working environment to probably most people's outpatient clinic jobs under a company or with the hospital systems. 

Lindsey Vestal I really appreciate your perspective in the sense that you have been in different in different exposures to different settings, different structures, and I really appreciate you sharing how you've thought deeply about the pros and cons of all those experiences. Because, you know, I do think that many people assume that owning a business, owning to be an pelvic health, to be an Otti and pelvic health, you do need to own your own business. And while that was my story and that is the story a lot of a lot of the students I support through my online course, O.T. Pioneers. By no means is it the only path. And in fact, I had Kelsey Mathias on another episode for the OTs and Pelvic health podcast, where we actually were very she was very bold in saying that actually owning a business wasn't for her, entrepreneurship wasn't for her, and she felt the need to be a change maker on much more systemic levels. And so I really appreciate this conversation on so many levels, but I particularly want to point that out for anyone listening to our conversation. That being a not an pelvic health can take many forms. And so if you find these little, you know, intuitive hits that are leading you towards a direction, listen to it because it's possible. I mean, here we are having a conversation about travel Pelvic health I would say you, which honestly I never even knew was possible. So, you know, maybe we can we can carve our own paths, we can find our own place. And, you know, you're you're a testimony to that. 

Abby Huggenberger Thank you. I loved everything that you just said. And yes, I'm an advocate for us all, making good money, doing what we do. And I think that's one thing I was thinking in the hospital system, which I loved that job so much, but I there's so much documenting after work and there's more hours than actually get paid for. And I just want to I kept thinking, there's got to be a way I can get compensated a little bit more even as a new grad. And I also just I had always wanted to travel, so it really just worked out the way the way it happened. 

Lindsey Vestal Yeah, that's. That's remarkable. So how far are you? Long into. I'm assuming that's a 12 week rotation. 

Abby Huggenberger So this one that I met is actually six months and I'm nearing the end of it. 

Lindsey Vestal Okay. So so what's next for you? 

Abby Huggenberger Well, I just yesterday I signed my second travel contract. 

Lindsey Vestal Awesome. Okay. 

Abby Huggenberger So I will be headed. Currently, I'm on the beaches of Delaware, which has been lovely. And I have this amazing place that I get to stay out. So it's travel therapy. You get stipends to pick your own place, and they're very generous stipends. So I have this amazing place 15 minutes from the beach that I'm going to miss very much, but I'm going to be headed to Savannah, Georgia, next for another six month contract. And I will be working in a hospital system as a travel therapist. So I'm super excited for that. And I was able to negotiate even a little bit more than I'm making at my current contract. So I'm just thrilled. 

Lindsey Vestal And is this placement also in Pelvic health? 

Abby Huggenberger Yep. It will be a totally outpatient pelvic health role, which I'm super thrilled about because I was nervous. I don't have many other outpatient skills. And so just coming in and telling a job that pelvic health is all I can do confidently was a little nerve wracking for me. But there's so much demand. I think we all kind of realize how much demand there is. Every place is, does it have enough pelvic floor therapists for how many clients they have and all that. So it's worked out very well. 

Lindsey Vestal And in terms of like logistics, did you end up using the same recruiter that you used for your first placement? 

Abby Huggenberger I did, and he's amazing. He's again, got me a contract set up. I'm a little more than two months out from when I'll be in Georgia, which is pretty awesome because like I said, sometimes they can come together a little bit last minute. So I just appreciate knowing where I'm going and being able to make plans accordingly and having something lined up with also some time off in between. 

Lindsey Vestal Oh yeah. 

Abby Huggenberger That's another kind of perk of travel therapy is that you can take however long off you want in between, you will experience kind of a lap in your health insurance through your recruiting company if you take more than two weeks off. But it's very non-binding. Like you could happen for one contract and you could hop out. There's no strings attached. So you can kind of throw in the towel at any time or create as much time off in between contracts as you want, which creates a lot of flexibility for folks that want more work life balance or even want to like work six months out of the year, make double what they made at their prior job and then kind of coast for the rest of the year. 

Lindsey Vestal Yeah. I love that. I love you. Really bringing to the forefront, you know, these perks that perhaps we just don't think about if we have it investigated travel therapy. It really does sound like the ultimate occupational choice in the sense that, yeah, like you can you can design the time, the time period that you want between, you know, of course hoping that the contract itself and know things are lining up. But there is a lot of flex in there and there is a lot of choice just to kind of create that environment that perhaps you you really need. And I just feel like that there is an incredible richness in that flexibility. And now that you are going on to contracts, I don't think people like, I think that any future potential offers or opportunities that are out there, it's it's going to be there's going to be a lot of confidence associated with taking you on because of your demonstrated experience. And so I just I think that's really cool. And I actually. You brought up something, Abby, I was going to ask you, which was about insurance. So so it sounds like the recruiting agency does cover that cost for health insurance. 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah. So they pay most of the premiums. And then what I currently pay out of pocket is I pay $75 a week out of my paycheck and that goes towards my health insurance. But it's health and dental and it travels with me. And they also offer for A1K matches. After you've accepted a couple of contracts, there's PTO accrual. They cover CEOs for you each year or C use my bad C use each year and I'm trying to think what else? So there's a lot of benefits with the traveling companies that I kind of thought wouldn't be there. But they do provide those just as part of being an employee of the recruiting company. 

Lindsey Vestal I had no idea. That is fantastic. And it also does. Would you say in your experience and I'm not asking I'm mean asking you to share numbers by any means, but would you say that travel gigs do end up paying more than your normal full time job? 

Abby Huggenberger Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I've seen such an increase in what I make and it couldn't have come at better timings because I like probably a lot of people and paying on the student loans and any extra bit helps. And so it's been really lucrative to be able to pay debt down. The also just have kind of a quality of life that I did not have before. Do you mind if I offer up specifics with my contract and what I make? I'm totally transparent. If you'd like me to know 

Lindsey Vestal Abby, we would love that. As long as you're comfortable, please. 

Abby Huggenberger Yes, absolutely. I'd be happy to share. So with traveling, everything's spoken about within terms of a not weekly pay. And most of my pay is. Is tax free stipends for housing and for food. And then a little less than half of my income is an hourly rate that gets taxed. So with the net weeklies that they quote you, it's all an after tax income, which is super nice. And so with my current contract in Delaware, what we negotiated up to was me making $1,931 a week. So that's after tax. The only thing that gets taken out of that is my $75 for health insurance. But that is over twice of what I was making in the hospital system. And then with this new contract that I just accepted, I was a really firm negotiator and we got it up to making $2,248 a week after tax. So if you kind of do some multiplication here, right, with the most recent contract of making $2,248 a week after tax, that is a salary of 116,000 after tax, which would be an actual pretax salary of over $150,000. So the financial aspect of traveling is just it's literally life changing for me. Lindsey, I, I cannot stress it enough. I'm making double my student loan payments. I'm flying wherever I want to fly for vacation. I'm investing in my brother's kids and their college funds and my friend's kids college funds. I it's just like truly more than I could ever have thought being one and a half years out of schooling even.

Lindsey Vestal I wish you could see the big smile on my face right now. I just. I love your confidence. I love your clarity. I just love your advocacy. Because I. Abby, I think that there is a fair amount of, you know, misunderstanding or controversy around this idea that we're in health care and yet we don't necessarily deserve a livable wage. And I really innately feel that those two things do not need to be in opposition with one another. I think that we can show up and serve and do our absolute best by our client standing in our strongest values. And I think we can come home and have a livable wage where we can take care of our family, our loved ones, our friends, college funds like you, you name it. And so thank you for just being being so clear in illustrating to us that this is possible. You know, I think that's a really important message to get out there. 

Abby Huggenberger Absolutely. I mean, I just think everybody could be making more and should be making more and should have a really good quality of life, especially with all the time we put in and how much we care with our clients. So I'm just an ambassador of truly as many people knowing about what could be out there, whether that's your typical day job, your permanent day job, whether that's a private practice option, whether that's travel therapy, even if it's something you did once and said, okay, that wasn't for me. Like, I promise your wallet would thank you for having done it, But I really just think it's the same jobs we're working right now. And if you have the flexibility to pop around or even if that's really, really appealing to you, I want this to be the push someone needs to to get out there and kind of get their bag. 

Lindsey Vestal You mentioned something. I want to make sure I heard correct. Did you say that you get a food stipend as well? 

Abby Huggenberger Yes. So that's kind of a portion of what I include in the weekly dollar amounts that I gave you. So, for instance, like with the $2,248 a week that I'll make in Georgia when I'm there, about a thousand of that a week is for housing. It's a housing stipend that's tax free. And then about $500 of that is going to be for food or miscellaneous or travel or whatever it is, another tax free stipend. And then the rest of that income is just my hourly wage that's been taxed. So I think my hourly wage is something like $28 or something like that. But with everything included as the pay package, it's really significant. And they always give you like way more than than you need. 

Lindsey Vestal Yeah. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. My second to last question is, you mentioned you were kind of like steadfast in your negotiation. Do you have any tips or just like takeaways for anyone listening on this call who maybe themselves is curious or struggling with this idea of negotiation? 

Abby Huggenberger Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, I come from a business background. My bachelor's was in math and business, and so I kind of have this bit of a stickler ness to me and like want the numbers to kind of evened out things like that. And especially because we I feel like we're always reading different or consuming different materials that say that women make less because they don't speak up and different things like that. So I would just encourage everybody, even if it seems outlandish to you to ask for more, to ask for a sign on bonus to ask for ten K more, even if you think there's no way they're going to do it. I've never not even asked. I always ask and I promise you every single time I've asked, I've gotten it. So it's just incredible to me how sometimes in the span of 30s, I have a job offer that's ten k more a year sitting on the table, and there's really no excuse for no one to pass that up. But it's a shame that we do have to ask for it in the beginning. Otherwise sometimes you do get lowball. But I would just say ask for it even if it sounds horrendous or different things like that. Ask for a sign on bonus. Ask for a relocation money. Ask for a laptop to be purchased with your work. Just be as greedy as you want to be. I feel like lots of people are leaving rehab right now and so there's lots of demand. Jobs want to hire you. They want to keep you in house if you're a good fit for the position. There's probably a lot they would do to get you on board. 

Lindsey Vestal Awesome that those were great tips. I love that. Really, really concrete and helpful. My last question for you is if you're comfortable. Can I throw in the show notes, the recruiters contact information because I have a suspicious feeling that anyone listening in who would be curious and going down this route may want to get in touch with them. 

Abby Huggenberger I would love to. I would love to provide his contact information and even a couple other recruiters as well that I touch base with, but I have never signed a contract with. But yes, he's a Venn tastic recruiter. He's even based out of my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. He works with Ventura Med staff. But yes, we'll include his information below. 

Lindsey Vestal You are. You are so delightful. Abby, I really can't thank you enough for for this conversation. And thank you for just being so honest and straightforward and just sharing your experience with us. I know it's going to inspire so many. 

Abby Huggenberger Thank you so much for having me, Lindsey. I appreciate getting a platform to chat about this and to kind of stand with a lot of other episodes on this podcast that have really helped me myself. So I appreciate it. 

Outro Thanks for listening to another episode of OTs and Pelvic health. If you haven't already, hop on to Facebook and join my group OTs for Pelvic health, where we have thousands of OTs at all stages of their pelvic health career journey. This is such an incredibly supportive community where I go live each and every week. If you love this episode, please take a screenshot of this episode on your phone and posted to IG Facebook or wherever you post your stuff and be sure to tag me and let me know why you like this episode. This will help me to create in the future what you want to hear more of. Thanks again for listening to the OTs and Pelvic health podcast.