Hi, New user, Hospice nurse looking for input from other hospice nurses

akcarmean, LPN · Dec 9, 2004

not in hospice care but welcome to allnurses

ATCant · Dec 10, 2004

Hello,
New user, looking for imformation from other hospice nurses, regarding their rate of pay, hourly or salary, on call rate, weekend rate, case loads etc.. the nurses in our office are courious about other hospices..and where we stand comparitivly speaking....

I have been in Hospice staff nurse since 1995. You can read my greeting and perhaps we could compare notes. I work for a freestanding Hospice. We never started out as a homecare agency which then had to switch to a hospice model of nursing. Did homecare for almost 2 years and felt like the mantra given by our director of that agency to maximize our visits was a racket designed to funnel money from medicare and insurances. With Hospice care I am doing more for my families and patient than I ever did in working in the Hospital or homecare. Every once in a while we get patient's from another Hospice usually out of state and if is obvious that they no longer are appropriate for Hospice. The family wants to keep Hospice because the nursing care is good and they get more services, ie meds, supplies, free volunteer to sit with mom so the family can get out to the flea market. The patient is appropriate for Home care service most of the time with a skilled need but because there are less services and they have been told by the previous that we will admit them into the next benefit period they choose to keep hospice care. We get stuck with an admission that is not appropriate for Hospice. Is this ever a problem for you. The philosophy of Hospice is very differnt from the home care philosophy. I don't see how an agency can use the same nurses and change the payor source and expect the nursing care to go from home care to Hospice. Perhaps I ramble too much but do you see these types of things?

Will be glad to compare some of the things from your thread. Let me know.

momcats3 · Dec 11, 2004

Hello,
New user, looking for imformation from other hospice nurses, regarding their rate of pay, hourly or salary, on call rate, weekend rate, case loads etc.. the nurses in our office are courious about other hospices..and where we stand comparitivly speaking....

Good question:) We are also curious about how other hospices operate. We are all considered salaried, which is a joke. Pay rate is from about $18-27/hr LPN/RN. We are only paid for 8 hours, whether or not we work 8, 10 or 12 which is the rule and not the occasional exception. We're supposed to take the extra time in "comp time" within the same 2 week period. This, of course, never happens, or you would end up taking 1 day off a week of "comp time". This is a very sore subject for us!!! We've raised our concerns to the VP, told they'd get back to us (hah); it's not happened yet. 1 weekend/month commitment. Nsg team is RN/LPN, supposed to have a case load of 22 max but it's been 26-30 for the past month or so, and it's crazy. Not sure what the pay is for on-call rate, I think perhaps $65/hr if you go out. I'd like to see what other hospices are doing. As much as I love my job, I (and, collectively we) are feeling very taken advantage of. Our organization is growing leaps and bounds in "Chiefs" but the Indians are bearing the increased loads with no end in sight! Oh, yes, forgot to tell you, we do get paid $10. per person per wk for anybody over 22. Yipee :angryfire

saribeth · Dec 11, 2004

Hello,
New user, looking for imformation from other hospice nurses, regarding their rate of pay, hourly or salary, on call rate, weekend rate, case loads etc.. the nurses in our office are courious about other hospices..and where we stand comparitivly speaking....

Hello and welcome! I am a hospice nurse at a VNA... we occasionlly see home care pts when our census is low and I am per diem...we get $42 per visit and $60 for an admission and slightly higher if it is a weekend or holiday. As you well know a visit can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, and with an extended visit of 2 hrs there is an increase. We rarely take on call but I think it is $100 from 4:30p - 8:30a and more if a visit is made...our case load is relatively light...4 pts daily is our max All the best...this is an incredible site with tons of info and support :)

pcrn · Dec 13, 2004

I have been in Hospice staff nurse since 1995. You can read my greeting and perhaps we could compare notes. I work for a freestanding Hospice. We never started out as a homecare agency which then had to switch to a hospice model of nursing. Did homecare for almost 2 years and felt like the mantra given by our director of that agency to maximize our visits was a racket designed to funnel money from medicare and insurances. With Hospice care I am doing more for my families and patient than I ever did in working in the Hospital or homecare. Every once in a while we get patient's from another Hospice usually out of state and if is obvious that they no longer are appropriate for Hospice. The family wants to keep Hospice because the nursing care is good and they get more services, ie meds, supplies, free volunteer to sit with mom so the family can get out to the flea market. The patient is appropriate for Home care service most of the time with a skilled need but because there are less services and they have been told by the previous that we will admit them into the next benefit period they choose to keep hospice care. We get stuck with an admission that is not appropriate for Hospice. Is this ever a problem for you. The philosophy of Hospice is very differnt from the home care philosophy. I don't see how an agency can use the same nurses and change the payor source and expect the nursing care to go from home care to Hospice. Perhaps I ramble too much but do you see these types of things?
Will be glad to compare some of the things from your thread. Let me know.

I work for a profit hospice.. Our case load is supposed to be 15... but we are growing like crazy and that is increasing...there are many times that i do not feel the patient is appropriate for hospice but our top administrater always says to recert the patient... which to me makes hospice a joke....the hospice i work for also has a home care business..so our nurses do not float back and forth. i would like to know how you are paid...if you dont mind sharing.... we get a salary of 41,600 a year... 15.00 for on call mon-thurs...50.00 for fri, sat, sun.. nothing for back up call on the weekends...if we go out on a weekend we get an open is 4 hours and a reg visit is 2 hours....if we get over 6 hours on the weekend... we get a day off during the week.... we pay our own cell phone.... so some things really suck... let me know

pcrn · Dec 13, 2004

Good question:) We are also curious about how other hospices operate. We are all considered salaried, which is a joke. Pay rate is from about $18-27/hr LPN/RN. We are only paid for 8 hours, whether or not we work 8, 10 or 12 which is the rule and not the occasional exception. We're supposed to take the extra time in "comp time" within the same 2 week period. This, of course, never happens, or you would end up taking 1 day off a week of "comp time". This is a very sore subject for us!!! We've raised our concerns to the VP, told they'd get back to us (hah); it's not happened yet. 1 weekend/month commitment. Nsg team is RN/LPN, supposed to have a case load of 22 max but it's been 26-30 for the past month or so, and it's crazy. Not sure what the pay is for on-call rate, I think perhaps $65/hr if you go out. I'd like to see what other hospices are doing. As much as I love my job, I (and, collectively we) are feeling very taken advantage of. Our organization is growing leaps and bounds in "Chiefs" but the Indians are bearing the increased loads with no end in sight! Oh, yes, forgot to tell you, we do get paid $10. per person per wk for anybody over 22. Yipee :angryfire

WOW... we get $20.00 an hour... and we are salary also....our nursing team is also supposed to be lpn/rn... but lately it has been rn/rn... our lpn is busy being an aide...when we back up the Rn on the weekend, we dont get paid unless we make a visit... which is 4 hours for an open, and 2 hours for a reg visit..not sure if that is legal... caring a pager for 24 hours without pay... our case load is supposed to be 15... only we are very busy and growing like crazy also... so that means that the case load is growing without compensation...our on call rate mon-thurs is $15.00 (what an insult) but if you go out you get paid per visit.. and for fri, sat, sun, we get $50.00 a day...plus paid per visit if made...we pay for our own cell phone... and get .30 cents a mile....any other questions let me know... thanks for your info.

shrinky · Sep 19, 2007

We are affliated with a hospital so we recently went from salary to hourly so they could cancel us if we are not busy or not meeting productivity. Salary depends on experience so it could be up to $30 an hour. We receive $1.50 an hour for call, a paid cell phone and $0.45 a mile for travel.

ray2512 · Sep 20, 2007

Have not been in here in a very long time. Hope I do this right.

Its amazing how many different variations there are on all these topics among Hospice Nurses. To bad there is not a standard nation wide for these things.

I have been a Hospice Nurse for almost 14 years now. The only reason I stay in it is because I love the work so much.

I make about $27 an hour at this point and will soon be a team leader that will pay about $29, but I have taken a lot of crap to get to this point.

I am salary but last weak I made about 28 visits and worked about 50 hours. We have lpns that are supposed to help, if you can find one that is not already booked up. A lot of times they are doing HHA duties.

We have an full time on/call nurse, but sometimes we also have to do that. It pays about $25 on weeknights and I think around $50 on weakends. We also get vist pay of $25 in town, $50 out of county and also the same for death visits in town. $75 for out of county death visits and admission visits out of county. $50 for in town admission visits. Now a days on/call is pretty much non stop for the intire time and just plan hell. No one of course in adm has a clue what call is like.

I presently have a case load of 19 clients which is way too much. A case load of max of 15 would be ideal in my opinion, 17 would be ok if you could depend on having a lpn help. Hope this helps and plan on being in here more often. Also will let you know how the team leader position goes and what it entells. Have a good one.

Hello,
New user, looking for imformation from other hospice nurses, regarding their rate of pay, hourly or salary, on call rate, weekend rate, case loads etc.. the nurses in our office are courious about other hospices..and where we stand comparitivly speaking....

aimeee, BSN, RN · Sep 20, 2007

I'm not clear on your compensation....when you say you get Visit pay of $25 in town, are you saying that you get a stipend of $25 for being on call on a weekday and then if you go on a vist (which happens to be in town) you get another $25 for the visit regardless of how long it takes you, but no hourly pay (because you are salaried, right?) and then you get no additional reimbursement for travel time? And do you get reimbursed for mileage? And if you get $50 for an admission visit, does that mean you get no additional compensation for documentation time?

ray2512 · Sep 20, 2007

Im sorry. We get $25 weeknights for carring the pager, $45 on the weekend. Then an additional $25 per visit in town and so on. We also get 48.5 cents a mile reimbursement. No additional for documentation time, but that only takes 10 minutes or so. So if I make 4 visit in town on weekend I would get $145 plus mileage. Total. Thats for 24 hours. Like Friday at 5pm to Saturday at 5pm.

The fulltime on call people get salary and mileage. I feel like we should just get a day salary just like they do, since we work all day then sometimes have to take call.

Some nurses although make a visit everytime they get a call if possible. Even if it only takes 15 minutes its still $25.

I'm not clear on your compensation....when you say you get Visit pay of $25 in town, are you saying that you get a stipend of $25 for being on call on a weekday and then if you go on a vist (which happens to be in town) you get another $25 for the visit regardless of how long it takes you, but no hourly pay (because you are salaried, right?) and then you get no additional reimbursement for travel time? And do you get reimbursed for mileage? And if you get $50 for an admission visit, does that mean you get no additional compensation for documentation time?

lantanaRN · Oct 10, 2007

:welcome:I work for one of the largest not-for-profit hospices in the country and love it. Pay rate is good, I'm a case mgr, salaried, 30.00/hr with plenty of overtime if I want it. Am seeing a pattern of not hospice apppropriate admissions over the last year too..families use up the SN in home health and want the same from us. Case load should be 12-15 optimally, however our team has been carrying 78 patients for months, which gives us a caseload of 15-18, which can be quite demanding at times. Burden was lifted as of the first of this month, with the addition of a new team and the spreading out of the caseloads, however, it will soon be "season" and our census will continue to climb. Fortunately I feel very priveleged to be doing what I do on a daily basis, so when this happens, I just kick it into high gear, and take PTO when the emotional overload becomes too much.