Death of the 13-Week Assignment?

The Role of Longer-Term Assignments in Staffing Strategy

You probably thought this article was about the rise in per-diem, not exactly. For decades, the 13-week travel nurse assignment has been the industry standard. It’s long enough to address short-term staffing gaps, short enough to preserve flexibility for clinicians, and familiar to every staffing leader in healthcare.Over the past 24 months Nomad has observed an interesting trend: more Nomad clinicians are opting for extensions to their 13 week assignments. 

Setting the Stage

Workforce stability may be improving, but hospitals are consistently at capacity and still cannot keep pace with patient and market demand. According to the 2025 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report from NSI Nursing Solutions, “This has a direct impact on quality outcomes, the patient experience and leads to excess labor costs such as overtime, critical staffing pay, salary increases, and travel/agency usage.” 

Coupled with the additional challenge of attracting and retaining permanent staff, this results in a complex problem that float pools, per diem staff, and internal cross-coverage alone cannot fully solve.

What our Data Tells Us

Most Nomad travel nursing assignments are still 13 weeks; however, 53% of travel RNs now extend their travel contract, compared to 42.5% pre-pandemic.

In addition, industry sources consistently show that travel nurse contracts now span a much wider range. From short per diem roles to assignments that are 26 weeks or longer.

While it’s obvious the 13-week assignment still anchors the market, there seems to be a growing willingness to extend. What we don’t yet have is a single, centralized industry report that quantifies year-over-year growth specifically for 26–39 week contracts.

Mutual Benefit of Extending a 13-week Assignment

This incremental shift emphasizes that some travel clinicians are looking to stay in one place a little longer, when the conditions are right..

72% of clinicians surveyed by Nomad Health and NATHO said they’d extend or return to a facility when they feel supported and heard by leadership. 

👉Read more about what drives clinicians to return to a facility here. 

What is Driving this Change for Clinicians?

Burnout: Frequent onboarding, constant transitions, and repeated resets take a toll. Longer assignments reduce that cognitive and emotional load and allow clinicians to reach full productivity without racing the clock.

Housing fatigue: Repeated short-term leases, temporary housing searches, and relocations create friction, financially and personally. Longer stays offer predictability and breathing room.

Continuity: From a quality and safety standpoint, that continuity matters most for patient outcomes.

How is this Impacting Healthcare Facilities?

For facilities, longer-term travel clinicians are a practical and often necessary component of workforce planning and offer several operational advantages beyond temporary coverage.

Consistency: Continuity of care supports patient safety, team cohesion, and smoother unit operations.

Reduced onboarding burden: A single, longer-term clinician reduces the repeated effort of training multiple short-term staff.

Flexible, reliable coverage: For units struggling to hire permanent staff, longer-term travelers allow leaders to meet census needs without relying on constant stopgap measures.

Interestingly enough, recent data from the Cost of Labor Study commissioned by NATHO and conducted independently by KPMG reveals, “Despite higher base wages, the overall cost for traveling staff in both categories (RN & AH) remains lower than that for permanent staff.” While hourly base wages for travelers may appear higher, the all-in hourly cost tells a different story. For facilities, the shift to a more flexible workforce model is increasingly a matter of fiscal responsibility and a growing reality of a changing healthcare delivery landscape.

What Leaders can do to Enable Longer Engagements

If we accept that stability is valuable, not only to the clinician but to the care ecosystem, how do we make more of it happen? Forward-looking workforce strategies are already doing a few things differently.

Support and incentivize extensions early

Staffing leaders should begin extension conversations well before the final 2–3 weeks of a contract. Proactive planning reduces gaps in coverage and avoids rushed decisions.

Build flexibility into contract design

Rather than treating 13 weeks as an immovable default, leaders can offer structured extension options. For example, 13+13, 13+26, or even direct 26–39 week contracts where clinically appropriate. The important thing isn’t the number itself, but predictability and consent on both sides.

When clinicians stay longer, facilities benefit from reduced onboarding costs and more consistent and safe patient care.

A Quieter Shift Reshaping the Travel Healthcare Workforce

The demand for 13-week assignments isn’t likely to vanish overnight, but it’s no longer the whole story.

What Nomad is experiencing is a small shift from rapid hopping to intentional continuity. Within our marketplace, we continue to observe steady growth in 13-week extensions; this suggests that under certain conditions (positive working relationships, responsive leadership, etc.) clinicians may be more inclined toward extended contracts.

The increase in extensions reflect a broader reality in healthcare staffing: permanent hires alone cannot always meet demand. And for leaders navigating workforce instability, that shift may be one of the most underutilized levers we have to improve both experience and outcomes.

Note: Our data is not intended to represent the full travel healthcare spectrum. Nomad Health supports a defined subset of assignment types, which means trends in our data may differ from those seen by other staffing providers.