Anyone else having their per visit pay cut due to Medicare cuts?

[Lauren21b]

The HH company I work for announced last week that they will be cutting our per visit pay by $3.50 per visit. That's for any type of visit. They are also decreasing our mileage reimbursement. This is only for the RN's. Not the LPN's. Our boss states it is due to Medicare's decreased reimbursement. He says that before now the company was able to keep up with the cuts. If the nurses were more "efficient" he wouldn't have to do this. Yet the case managers are constantly giving the RN's visits that can be done by the LPN's. They also call to add patients to us at 3 or 4 o'clock that should be LPN visits. But the LPN's are usually finished seeing patients by that time and will refuse to go back out to see any more patients. That sure seems inefficient to me! Has anyone else had this happen where they work?

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

No. But I would certainly be looking for another job.

[Opto]

In which state is this happening? Sounds like any excuse will do to cut pay. sorry to hear!

[Lauren21b]

Louisiana

[LaRN]

I'm curious as to how much these cuts have been to the agency. In the past when HH got cuts, they always figured out a way to make the difference up such as decreasing visits during the episode, and adding therapy to more patients. Home healths are notorious for crying about cuts when they actually make a hell of a lot of money

[Lauren21b]

I have no doubt that things aren't as bad as my boss makes them out to be. He drives a Jaguar for God's sake! I think what ticks us off the most is that he blames the nurses for our "inefficiency". That and the fact that he hasn't cut pay for anyone else. Not the LPN's or the PT(who also gets a company car to drive). Just the RN's. It seems he views us as easily replaceable. He obviously has no clue what an awesome team of nurses he employs.

[Opto]

Have you noticed any other impact of the Obamacare on your jobs? I heard that there would be job cuts, but nurses are such important elements and already I find that there is a shortage.

[Isabelle49]

I'm in Louisiana too. Would love to know what agency is doing that? I can tell you that Synergy Home Health is not.

[MunoRN, RN]

The profit margin in home health runs about 21%, which is obscenely high. For comparison, typical 'successful' companies like HP, Dell, and Nike run about 6% profit margins. With offsets, the cuts to home health are about 1.5%, hardly enough to cut into Nurses pay, unless these companies just want to use the cuts as an excuse to cut staff pay and make even more profit.

[MauraRN]

I worked for an agency per diem 2 years ago, was working full time home health job as well. Per diem company cut our pay by $6 per visit because "medicaid reimbursements" were lower than expected. The owners and all upper management did not receive cut. THis is in Massachusetts.