Call Ins. Again

[Mikeinhouston]

Just wondering how does your facility find staff for late call ins and errors in scheduling. What are your facility's procedures? Please help.

[pinkiepieRN]

Where I work, there is no such policy! We are all "required" to work every other weekend but on my weekends, almost all of the staff is PRN. We never have enough GNAs on the weekend and nothing happens! This is probably not what you want to hear, but I'm curious about what others have to say.

[julz68]

Our facility offers "emergency pay" which is time and a half plus $5/hr extra. Most people will come in on short notice with that incentive. I know I have! Makes for a hefty paycheck!

[brownbook]

We ask any nurse currently working if they will stay over extra hours, start calling whatever nurses are not scheduled to work, we will call nurse the manager of a particular unit if the situation is really critical.

The staff does get extra pay for overtime, unscheduled shifts, etc.

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

nothing. we get mandated for up to 16.5hrs.

[Nurse Kyles, BSN, RN]

We ask people if they would like to stay. Otherwise we call people to see if they are willing to work. We also have a staff Facebook page that the charge nurse will post the shift that needs to be covered. When the schedule comes out if there are openings, a posting goes up on the board. All of these openings usually get filled really quickly, because our unit offers premium pay which is time and a half. If no one agrees to stay, then someone is mandated based on last date mandated. They do get the premium pay. It is very rare to be mandated.

[Ruas61, BSN, RN]

Facebook staffing page, what a good idea.

[lindseylpn]

Where I work now we have an on call staffing coordinator and she gets paged for call ins and starts looking for a replacement. When I worked in ltc when a cna or nurse called in we were supposed to find a replacement ourselves. So, if our relief called in we were supposed to somehow call around and find ourselves a replacement plus start the med pass for the next shift. If we couldn't find anyone we were supposed to call the unit supervisor to come in but, they usually wouldn't.

[serenidad2004]

On my previous unit we had a "staffing" nurse as well. She was supposed to do the schedule find coverage for call ins, fill any holes in the schedule, and help with admissions.

Yep those things rarely happened. A hole in the schedule? Oh she "must have missed that" oh you couldn't find coverage and ended up working a 16hr shift? Not even so much as a "hey sorry I missed that thanks for covering it"

Never did see her help with an admit. Her excuse "I don't know the patient" uh yeah neither do I hence the term "admit"

Management was of no help. They did nothing about her not doing her job and I was once told "It doesn't matter if you don't have a sitter for your infant, you can either stay the 16hr shift or find new employment"

All of the 16hr shifts took their toll on me... I left for greener pastures. As did many of the nurses I worked with.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

We never try and cover call offs. Just work short and make it work. And darnit, all of your patients better feel like they're your only patient.

[LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN]

We have a staffing office that will call, plus they will send out a text message. They offer a shift incentive of 40% of your base pay. We work 12s so one extra shift after the first 4 hours you are in overtime so then you are earring overtime plus the incentive so almost double time for the last 8 hours.

[kayern]

Here's what we do:

RN weekend call-ins = the following schedule and extra weekend day is schedule = payback

Ancillary do not have to make up weekends

All call ins need to be received by the Administrative Supervisor at least two hours before the start of the shift, anything short of two hours, it is up to the discretion of the manager to pay or not to pay.

For those staff members that come in, knowing they are sick, and leave within the first hour, again up to the discretion of the manager to pay or not to pay. You get comments like........If I called in, I'd be in violation of the attendance control policy. I explain to them that its not fair to the patients or their peers because had you called in, perhaps we could have covered the call in, but by showing up and wanting to go home you begrudge the institution from trying to cover you, so you are still in violation of the attendance control policy and now you don't get paid because you didn't call in two hours before the start of your shift. I've done this once of twice and have been a manager for years so my staff adheres to the policy and their peers hold them to it as well!