I talked to a nurse a few weeks ago who told me that she was able to enter into contracts with hospitals directly without going through an agency. She said she was making $65 an hour in Arizona. The drawback was she had to incorporate as a business and provide her own insurance, but then again she said that only cost her "a couple of hundred bucks" and that it was not hard to do.

Thats about all the info I can tell you, but cutting out the middle man seems like a good idea if you can pull it off.