Caregiver?

[Noah Birch, LPN]

I am an LPN finishing RN school in April. I work part-time at my current job and am looking to pick up more hours. A member of my community has asked me to take care of his dad. This includes helping him take medications, driving to appointments, household stuff, and just general wellness things. Does anyone know if I can just be hired as a caregiver even though I'm a licensed nurse? I would rather not go through all the formalities of becoming a nurse contractor for one family. Has anyone done this? 1099 tax reporting? Insurance? Any input or experience would be appreciated.

[Coffeeandcasemanagement]

Hi, I am not sure if we can advise you on this per TOS.

My thoughts are that it would be inadvisable to do this due to the fact that while you may be doing "caregiver" non-nursing duties, the family may hold you to a higher sdtandard since they know you are a nurse. In addition- if something emergent was to happen while you were on the clock, I believe you would need to act as a nurse despite not being employed in that capacity. Even if the family says they will release and hold harmless any responsibility on your part, they may not know how they'll feel until something happens. And then they may change their tune.

Just my two cents, and I am sure someone else will chime in.

[Crash_Cart]

When you're a licensed nurse, there's no such thing as not remaining accountable regardless of what "caregiver" capacity you may be functioning.

For example, I seen this scenario play out in the past with LPN's who worked as so called unlicensed patient care assistants (directly alongside me) in an effort for hospital management to prevent a complete layoff situation from occurring at the hospital.

An inquiry was made and the BON made it very clear they continue to remain accountable as an LPN. I thought it was unfair because their wage was cut and they were no longer employed, or functioning as LPN's, but because of the fact they still had an active license, they still had an obligation to remain accountable in terms of maintaining their standard of practice. I recall some situations playing out and getting sticky for them at times, where the lines became blurred and answers to things were clear as mud.