How to become Independent nurse?

adventure_rn, MSN, NP · Jan 21, 2018

I kind of doubt it. In addition to the any ethical or professionalism issues that might arise, I think that insurance would be your biggest barrier. You'd either have to go through an agency (who may not be willing to let you care for family members), or you'd have to figure out how to bill insurance companies for your services (which sounds like a huge logistical can of worms).

In the event that you did figure out how to bill insurance for your services, insurance companies may be skeptical if they discover that you're an independent contractor billing for the care of a family member without any oversight, since that sounds like the makings of an insurance fraud scheme. I'm sure that's not your intention, but I could imagine it becoming a giant nightmare of red tape.

You may also face some barriers by providing nursing care without an overseeing physician to write orders for the care that you provide, both from an insurance perspective and a Board of Nursing/Medicine scope of practice perspective.

However, I'm not a home health or private duty nurse, so I may be wrong. You'd probably get more useful traffic on one of their forums than the 'career advice' forums.

Also, there are dozens of AN posts on similar topics in the archives. You may be able to find some info by searching for 'nurse caring for family member'.

Best of luck.

Thevdim · Jan 21, 2018

Thanks!

Thevdim · Jan 21, 2018

I kind of doubt it. In addition to the any ethical or professionalism issues that might arise, I think that insurance would be your biggest barrier. You'd either have to go through an agency (who may not be willing to let you care for family members), or you'd have to figure out how to bill insurance companies for your services (which sounds like a huge logistical can of worms).
In the event that you did figure out how to bill insurance for your services, insurance companies may be skeptical if they discover that you're an independent contractor billing for the care of a family member without any oversight, since that sounds like the makings of an insurance fraud scheme. I'm sure that's not your intention, but I could imagine it becoming a giant nightmare of red tape.
You may also face some barriers by providing nursing care without an overseeing physician to write orders for the care that you provide, both from an insurance perspective and a Board of Nursing/Medicine scope of practice perspective.
However, I'm not a home health or private duty nurse, so I may be wrong. You'd probably get more useful traffic on one of their forums than the 'career advice' forums.
Also, there are dozens of AN posts on similar topics in the archives. You may be able to find some info by searching for 'nurse caring for family member'.
Best of luck.

Thanks for your reply. You brought up a great point of insurance and fraudulence! That would definitely be something to consider thoroughly before starting anything like this (or just starting a business).

Since both my parents' cares are through an agency I just thought it would've been better off not to go through an agency but to self manage it as a their child/RN working caring them. But now I see there is a lot more to it. Again, thanks for your input!

a.costea · Jan 21, 2018

Think about it in a different way...agencies too are run by people, why don't you establish one?