HELP! Is this ethical or even legal??

Specialties Home Health

Published

I need some opinions if this sounds perhaps not in sync with labor laws.

The home agency changed from an hourly to per visit pay last wk.

as the agency admitted to "do away with overtime".

Routine visit is only $33...doesn't matter how much time it takes. I've a pt with biwkly bowel program...an easy hour and a half. All visits are counted as 1...SOC, ROC.. IV teaching, TPN....."a pt visit is a pt visit" .(Six visits min per 8 hr day.. No pay for traveling or mileage (company states is all been factored into the ppv rate.

No pay for charting. I have an oasis to do on a pt I saw 1/6....need to do the recert that I wasn't told about at time of visit. I won't get paid for the time this wknd I am doing it.

Paid vacations are a thing of the past. If I want paid vacation I have to agree to a lower ppv rate; if I want the higher ppv, then vacation is not paid. The time off is based on 6 visits a day/ returned at only 5.5 visits a day when I want to claim the time.

Corporate showed up last wk, presented to everyone what the wages where to be... I initaled the preliminary change of status.. I voiced my disagreement to the no pay for travel time. It was poo pooed.

This wk I received a letter from HR requesting my signature to the wage changes that I "agreed" to the changes. I havent signed it... I accepted the wages to keep my employment... I DO NOT agree to the changes. I hold that as a big difference.

Could I be forced to signed the agreement letter...??? Could that become an issue? To keep my job, I have to sign?

The expected completion of charting, quality of pt care hasn't changed any.... Im tired of putting in 10-11 hrs a day to pt care and being paid for only 6 hrs..

Any suggestions?? Is this a possible labor law issue?

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To the best of my knowledge, since the employer gave you at least 24 hours written notice, they are able to change the conditions of employment any way they dern well please. If you don't like it, well, you know. You will have to verify this with the labor board. I definitely would have a session with the labor board before you make your decision on what you are going to do. BTW, one of my employers who refused to pay me overtime (I was working 12 hour shifts 6 days a week), after the fact, sent me a letter for me to sign that said I was giving up my claim to accrued overtime. That was about a year and a half ago. I never signed the letter. I've left their employ for other reasons, but I never did sign the letter and they never demanded it. I'm certain the letter came about because somebody had the cajones to go to the labor board about the withheld overtime. You know what I'm going to advise you to do, don't you? Any guesses? Only if you are desperate, should you stay there. And only long enough to find employment elsewhere. Good luck.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Peds, Pediatraic Home Care, Infusion.

It is a sad reflection of the state of nursing. There is no shortage so those employers who were already abusing nurses are now really going for it. I hate to say it again but that is why we need the "Union". We do not stand behind one another or we would be treated better. We have so much value but we do not show strength------- without rallying together to stand up to these employers who go home after an eight hour day with a full hour lunch and weekends off, holidays, etc------plus benefits--------

There is no value placed on experience. They do not seek excellence in patient care--------only the bottom line. It is not about patient care. It is just awful. I would never encourage anyone to come into the nursing.

After working in hospitals for many years and thus being paid for the hours worked (not paid for all the missed lunches and breaks------so was routinely screwed out of an hours pay each day) but if I had to stay late I got paid for it. In home health as a full time employee I was that awful "salaried" employee--------which meant just outrageous hours which when I got out the calculator and figured it up per hour was such a low rate that I left. It has gotten so bad. I've been a nurse for more then twenty years and it is so much worse then when I started. It is shocking. We need protection. Those employers who steal our valueable time need to be held accountable. But without protection we can not win. We just continue to let them get away with this because we need to work. So sad.

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Please see my thread on the "fee-basis" exemption that allows home health agencies to avoid paying their nurses overtime.

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So how do we organize a nationwide union?

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It would take soldiarity within the nursing profession. Will never happen.......

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I do not know. That is why I got onto this site this a.m. I plan on writing a letter to my State Senator asking that the legislation in Section 541 of the FLSA be revisited. I have already written a letter to the President, as I stated. I just believe that if enough home health nurses were aware of why this was happening we could join forces and try to get it amended. Again, as the baby boomers reach the point where they need care, the home health nurse is going to play a huge role in the management of these patients. I would love to have more input as to what we can do to stop this--or, at least get the minimum $458.00/week limit raised to $1500.00--that would at least get us some overtime for all of the work we put in.

Any suggestions out there?

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

as others have said...stay there only as long as you need to secure other/better employment.

sounds like a for profit homecare agency set on maximizing profit at the expense of their professional staff...

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There is now a National Nurses Union which was just formed in December 2009. The California Nurses Union and three other larger unions have joined together to form a union at the national level. Home health nurses were specifically pointed out in several of the web pages I could find on the Union.

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I agree...a union of like minded nurses needs to build strength. Do I think the average nurse/single parent who chose homehealth for its scheduling flexibility will rock her boat (even as it springs a slow leak) to voice support for a "union" will face ire from her employer? Nope

It's a sad state of affairs.

I will investigate further.... as I love to write letters to my gov't reps!

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

NNU was all over Michigan Nurse this month.

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And how was the response to NNU?

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