I received a "write up" warning at my LTC

Specialties Geriatric

Published

Apparently, I have committed the terrible sin of "working overtime." How dare I want to be a responsible person and do the " medicare charting" before I go home. What was I thinking?

It seems that whenever I think I might leave on time something always comes up. A fall, sending a patient to the ER etc etc etc. And I can always depend on the pharmacy to bring in a huge supply of medications right before the next shift arrives. I've given up hope. That's for sure.

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Specializes in Rehab, LTC, Peds, Hospice.

Delegate as much as you can to the next shift when it's something that happens at change of shift. Make a note in the patients chart that you did so.

LTC - love my patients, the rest of it, not so much..

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Specializes in Med Surg.

Where I work you can stay as long as you want to finish your charting and won't be written up. The catch is, unless you write in the OT book a valid reason for staying (charting does not count) you will not be paid for the extra time past your normal shift. You don't even have to punch out on time. If they see you stayed late, they check the OT book and if you didn't write anything in there, they just pay you for the normal shift and leave it at that. Why can't every facility do this?

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Where I work you can stay as long as you want to finish your charting and won't be written up. The catch is unless you write in the OT book a valid reason for staying (charting does not count) you will not be paid for the extra time past your normal shift. You don't even have to punch out on time. If they see you stayed late, they check the OT book and if you didn't write anything in there, they just pay you for the normal shift and leave it at that. Why can't every facility do this?[/quote']

Every facility can't do this because you can't force employees to work for free. If you are performing duties associated with your job, you need to be on the clock. At our facility, we are not expected to work for free, and if we need to stay late for whatever reason then we are paid for that time. I simply can't imagine how anything else could be legal?

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We had a big problem with OT until our managers asked that we call them at home to get approval for any OT that wasn't an emergency. (They can read a fall report and understand if a patient fell at shift change)

Our OT dropped by 67%. A lot of the problems could have been fixed by talking to one nurse who insisted on staying late every shift to build up comp time for personal reasons but it did help all of us to start delegating any items that we could to the next shift.

Patient comes back from appointment with new orders? Hand them off to the next nurse.

Since we are all in the same boat we have all learned to accept the list of items from prior shift vs the 1 or 2 nurses who never wanted to take on any extras at the start of the shift.

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Wow!! I thought the LTC I worked out was difficult! No signing out washcloths here, but LOTS of time consuming double charting paperwork. I feel your pain.

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Specializes in Rehab, LTC, Peds, Hospice.
Where I work you can stay as long as you want to finish your charting and won't be written up. The catch is, unless you write in the OT book a valid reason for staying (charting does not count) you will not be paid for the extra time past your normal shift. You don't even have to punch out on time. If they see you stayed late, they check the OT book and if you didn't write anything in there, they just pay you for the normal shift and leave it at that. Why can't every facility do this?

This is illegal. Approved or not, they must pay you if you are working. What they can do is make a no overtime policy without approval then write you up for not getting approval and eventually fire you if it continues. But they must pay you.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.
If they see you stayed late, they check the OT book and if you didn't write anything in there, they just pay you for the normal shift and leave it at that. Why can't every facility do this?

Because not every staff nurse is agreeable to working for free. The labor dept sure isn't. ;)

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And this is one of the many reasons why I never want to go back to LTC... Management was putting more and more work on the staff nurses, cutting staff, and having a fit if there was any OT. Many of us had to work through our lunch breaks (and not get paid for that time) just so that we could punch out on time. And many times we still were there trying to finish our work long after the shift ended. There were far too many times that I was 30-45 min late picking my kids up after school... Worst feeling... Never again.

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