I've come to realize that home health isn't for me. Working 8 hrs/day, driving all over and then coming home to hours of paperwork.

I've been in HH for about 15 months, prior to that I worked ICU for 1 year. I'm having a hard time even getting an interview for jobs other than HH, and I live in a large city: Austin, TX. Is this common? Once in HH, always in HH?

Thanks for your input :-)

No worse than being "typecast" in any other specialty. You should go to a different agency and request to do shift work instead of intermittent visits. You will find that your paperwork problems and driving all over creation problems go away. You just do your shift and your one nurses note and you are done for that day. You get paid for all the time on the job. No paperwork at home on your own time baloney. Try this. It will make things a lot more tolerable while you are looking for another job.

No worse than being "typecast" in any other specialty. You should go to a different agency and request to do shift work instead of intermittent visits. You will find that your paperwork problems and driving all over creation problems go away. You just do your shift and your one nurses note and you are done for that day. You get paid for all the time on the job. No paperwork at home on your own time baloney. Try this. It will make things a lot more tolerable while you are looking for another job.

Know what? I had just been thinking about doing that, but wondering how a shift at someone else's home would feel. I am going to go ahead and apply for shift work at another agency that is advertising locally. Thank you for your response!

Shift work in home health is the real best kept secret in home health as well as nursing. What is really great is a 12 hour shift with a certain type of client, like overnight. You will see once you get involved in shift work. You might end up not wanting to find a different type of job.

PRIVATE DUTY IS NOT HOME HEALTH!!! We have enough trouble getting medical people to understand that, let alone having people in the field confuse the two.

No, you are absolutely not stuck in home health, and if you stay a while- big deal. You will keep up your skills. I have been in home health since 1988 and because I was part-time for the most part I worked other jobs also. It kept me from getting burned out. Home health can act as an entrance to long-term care, and for me currently- school nursing. You can still go back to the hospital, but after a while in home health you develop a level of independent thought that is hard to let go of. It is tough to go back to the powerlessness of hospital work. I have also known nurses to enter clinic work, and insurance work with the experience they gain in home health. You can be a case manager or nursing instructor too. Public health departments also recognize home health skills as valuable, as do the prison systems. Or, you can try private duty, but to me it is a long eight hours staying with one patient. You use all your skills in this field and can transfer that anywhere.

If you have to be full-time, you may always hate the long hours and mounds of paperwork. I have worked in home health and hospice, and for several different agencies. Overtime, often unpaid, is part of the deal. But, you can have the flexibility of stopping at a store or running an errand, plus the freedom of being out in your car, chilling out to music and seeing the scenery between patients. I never tired of the travel. Any job has tradeoffs. Let me know when you find the ideal one, because I have not yet.

Good luck to you.

Well, having been on clinical rotations in a BSN program, and employed in the field for almost 20 years, I think I know the difference as so well put by my instructors and employers over the years. Call it what you want, it is still nursing care performed in the home setting.

Well, having been on clinical rotations in a BSN program, and employed in the field for almost 20 years, I think I know the difference as so well put by my instructors and employers over the years. Call it what you want, it is still nursing care performed in the home setting.

Nope, not the same at all. It is like calling a personal care home a nursing home. Not the same at all. You alter the reputation of home health agencies if you compare them to private duty agencies. I have nothing against private duty, and even worked at a home health agency that had a private duty side- but it was a completely separate business entity and did not have to go through all the hoops we have to go through for the right to call ourselves a licensed home health care provider. You need to understand that this is an important difference. If you understand as you say you do then you should not perpetuate the confusion that LAYPEOPLE already have.