Home Health Psych Nursing

AnnemRN · Jan 11, 2006

I worked for a home health agency that had psych nurses, generally their assignments were 5 visits a day ( as opposed to our six visits). I know that both our psych nurses had worked in a county behavorial center prior to working for our agency. At that time ( in the early 90's) they had to have at least two years experience to go into home health. I think you should call a local HH agency to find out what their requirements are for psych nursing, not all agencies have a psych nurse so you may have to call several. The psych nurses were paid hourly ( as were we) but I'm sure it depends on the agency. Hope that helps!!:)

jrzygrl · Jan 11, 2006

Thanks so much for your response, that did shed some light on my situation. I really appreciate it! I hope I can find a HH agency that has psych nurse positions available - that is my main concern as it seems many do not have that, and I don't have any experience as a psych RN, but maybe things will work out. Thanks so much!

AnnemRN · Jan 11, 2006

I should add that a HH agency may hire you to cover their psych patients but also expect you to cover the general population as well. Our psych nurses would do that if there weren't enough psych patients on service to keep them busy. Good luck!!:)

slrn · Jan 13, 2006

Congrats on your pending graduation. I've been a psych home health

nurse for several years now. Currently the biggest requirement to getting started as a psych home health nurse is that Medicare requires a minimum of 1 yr of inpatient psych experience for certification. Once you have that year of experience you are able to request "certification" through Medicare which allows you to serve as a psych home health nurse.

Psych home health (as with most home health) varies greatly depending

on your geographic location and population served. I've worked in

rural and metro areas in several states for both Mom & Pop and

national chain agencies. The biggest obstacle I've found is the lack

of available resources. Unless you are with one of the bigger

corporate chains with lots of resources available, you will often find

yourself scrounging to put things together (including appropriate

psych assessments) and forget about patient teaching resources unless

you design it yourself.

Therefore, my advice is if you are really interested in psych, take

advantage of the inpatient experience time Medicare requires and begin

to assemble your own personal library of resources so that when you

are ready to jump to home health you will have tools available.

Psych is a great field, hope you find it works for you. Good Luck!