Home health agency questions- help

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Apr 7, 2008

check out agencies that are part of visiting nurse associations of america --- they are the pioneers of this profession.

national association for home care & hospice :[color=#660000]home care or hospice agency locator

another indicator is: home health compare

"this tool provides you with information on how well the home health agencies in your area care for their patients"

you can find out names of all agencies in your area and see how they provide care. better scores usually indicate higher quality agency.

re mileage: you should be paid from office to last patient visited or from first patient to last patient visited in a day when doing intermittent homecare visits. federal mileage business reimbursement is 50.5 cents/mile.

http://hr.blr.com/news.aspx?id=77611

good luck in finding a quality agency to work in!

imanedrn · Apr 8, 2008

check out agencies that are part of visiting nurse associations of america --- they are the pioneers of this profession.
national association for home care & hospice :[color=#660000]home care or hospice agency locator
another indicator is: home health compare
"this tool provides you with information on how well the home health agencies in your area care for their patients"
you can find out names of all agencies in your area ans see how they provide care. better scores usually indicate higher quality agency.
re mileage: you should be paid from office to last patient visited or from first patient to last patient visited in a day when doing intermittent homecare visits. federal mileage business reimbursement is 50.5 cents/mile.
http://hr.blr.com/news.aspx?id=77611
good luck in finding a quality agency to work in!

isn't home health considered medical purposes?

50.5 cents per mile for business miles driven;
19 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes

annaedRN, RN · Apr 9, 2008

19 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes

That is personal medical purposes - like you taking your kid to the doctor. If your agency reimburses you for mileage, it is in a different capacity - a professional one. You are traveling for your agency/company...not for any personal reason. Make any sense?

Change of Pace - I work for a non-profit VNA and I have been very impressed from the beginning with what they stand for and how they operate. So, check out your closest Visiting Nurse Association and see if it is any different than the bigger for profit agencies.

caliotter3 · Apr 20, 2008

I would certainly ask about compensation over the phone when deciding where to apply first, if you have a number of agencies to choose from. Ask if you can choose between doing intermittent visits or shifts, as you prefer. If you do visits, they should pay you mileage as described in the other posts. Another question to ask is how they pay overtime for shiftwork. Do they pay according to your state's law for any work over eight hours for one shift? Many agencies like to cheat their workers from overtime. If you are ok with this because you are hurting for income, at least you should be aware of it up front. Otherwise, you can ask this question of all the agencies and choose one that doesn't cheat their workers. Ask what the pay rate or range is, and what is the criteria used for determining your rate. Why work for $15 an hour on a case and find out from another nurse that they are being paid $22 an hour for the same case. This can become very demoralizing, particularly when you find out that you were lied to about pay. Ask how they assign work to nurses. Do they have a priority list when there are more nurses than work? Are you going to have to sacrifice your first born or call every morning and beg for work? I once worked for an agency that had been unionized and supposedly there was a system in place for assigning work to nurses, but this "system" was circumvented all the time and this was well known. They had a policy that you had to have no restrictions (like refusing to work in homes where there is smoking) and when you were out of work, instead of making an effort to find you a permanent case, they would "use" you for on call. If you didn't do on call, they would not offer you work and terminate you after 90 days. Don't be shy about asking about pay issues. Just remember that the employees who get the higher pay weren't afraid to talk about pay to their own advantage.

BlueRidgeHomeRN · Apr 21, 2008

i'm looking for a quality home health agency but have come up with crappy ones so far. i plan on calling some places today but i'm not sure what questions to ask to see if they are worth my time.
any suggestions? should i ask about compensation over the phone? my husband's car is in the body shop and he's taking my car today since i'm off.
should you expect them to pay for gas/mileage? if not, should they pay extra compared to other companies? i'm in fl and the wages they pay are insulting for home health (i'm an lpn). not sure if it was just this company or what..

where in fl--i worked orlando area for years and will be happy to give you my 2 cents worth on good, bad, and indifferent! :uhoh3:

changeofpaceRN · Apr 25, 2008

I'm in the Tampa area so I'm not too far from Orlando. I didn't see a way to PM you personally to talk about which ones I have problems with.

Aside from that, I found another agency that sounded great. I took all their tests and passed. They scheduled me for orientation and I accepted. The day before orientation, they called to say they are swamped with work and people have to go out of state for conferences so they have to push my orientation back 3 weeks!!!!! 3 weeks!!!!! I feel like they could give 2 *insert bad word* about me already!