Bait and Switch?

Specialties Case Management

Published

I recently went to an interview with a home health company for a case management position. They said in the job description that they would provide "extensive training". Sounds good to me since I don't have experience as a case manager and I'm eager to learn. During the interview they kept asking me what I know about home health. I told them that from what I understand it is temporary care for people who were discharged from Acute care but still need skilled care before they can be independent. And they kept asking and I couldn't get them to clarify what it is they want to know. They know I don't have home health experience. So I don't know what it is they keep asking me.

So they made me an offer and I accepted. Today I went to orientation and it dawned on me that I'm not a case manager. I'm a home health nurse. And that's okay. I'm open to learning a new specialty and I actually think I might like it okay. But I really am interested in going into case management at some point. So my question is will I learn case management skills in this role? I listened to them talk about how our role is coordinating care with other providers and that sounds like case management. But I will also be doing nursing care, like straight caths and wound care. So did they lure me in by saying I'm a case manager only to make me a home health nurse?

I'm glad to hear you are leaning toward not taking the home health job. With your judgmental attitude toward people whose standards of living are not up to yours and your pessimism toward people caring for their loved ones at home I'd say it's not a very good fit.

On the other hand, perhaps it would have been helpful to meet wonderful families lovingly caring for those at home. You might get a sense that the neglect, abuse and exploitation may be what we hear about on the news and what your long experience has shown you, but it's not nearly as "far too common" as you seem to think in the field.

Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.

Words cannot express the relief I feel that you stopped me from making a horrible, terrible mistake. Just the thought of what could have happened if you weren't so kind to point out my character flaws, puts me in the most awful state of panic. Why, just now my heart s beating so fast that I'm very sure it's about to fly out of my chest!

Imagine the great relief I feel knowing that you were able to release from laboring under the illusion that I had come to these conclusions based on personal experience and with conversation with the many families I have worked with lo these 9 years as a nurse. I am overjoyed t learn that I had been watching the news this whole time and somehow managed to build up a comfy little 401(k) all the while. I am curious to learn more about this miracle, but goodness me, I must now lie down before I am overcome with the vapors. I am comforted with the knowledge that allnurses.com is here for you to exercise your moral superiority over me so that I can undo the damage I have done to others before you saved me from myself.

Bless your kind soul for keeping the ages old tradition of nurses eating their own. Surely we cannot l t this tradition die before it can be wielded at every possible opportunity.

NatKat,

You weren't lured in. HH and Hospice RN Case Managers are visiting nurses as well. They just didn't make that clear as a part of your interview process. Each agency has a different way of utilizing staff but I spent 15 years between HH and Hospice and never worked at a desk as a RN Case Manager. You just become responsible for all coordination of care between medical providers, DME, pharmacy, and the other HH or Hospice team members. It means you spend more time on the phone and have more documentation to complete at the end of the day.

I work as a contract RN CCM now for the US Air Force. This type of case management requires a specialty certification and has less patient contact. My office sits in a family health clinic at a military treatment facility (MTF) on a active duty base. This type of case management requires you to have extensive clinical experience and medical benefits plan knowledge. I spend a lot of time on the phone coordinating care between the MTF, VA, and civilian MEDICARE or TRICARE network providers. I also work with wounded, ill, and injured (WII) active duty service members to provide the same coordination of care with their medical treatment teams and payment sources but have the added layer of working with their military commands as well.

Every type of case management has it's value and lessons to teach. Take in what experiences you can wherever you are because you never know where you will be needed tomorrow.

hospice tess :)

Bait and switch is not the issue.

You accepted the position with a title of case manager.. you did not understand your job description.

You do home care visits... period.

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