How far will you drive between visits?

[erroridiot]

If required to do 28-32 visits per week, how far can you drive between patients and meet your productivity?

If an agency has patients up to 200 or more miles apart, or even 100 or more miles apart, it does not appear possible to meet this productivity level at all.

Is this a set up for failure?

[RubyRN,CHPN]

No, not necessarily. My agency has 50 mile=1 pt. productivity weight and has the region set up by teams. Some of the nurses that go way out in the boonies only see 3-4 pt's. in an eight our day and drive 150-200 miles round trip. Providing you stay on task, it is quite possible to meet this requirement in an 8-10 hour day. It makes more sense to assign these pt's. to a clinician who possilby works a longer work day for the sake of productivity.

[erroridiot]

No, not necessarily. My agency has 50 mile=1 pt. productivity weight and has the region set up by teams. Some of the nurses that go way out in the boonies only see 3-4 pt's. in an eight our day and drive 150-200 miles round trip. Providing you stay on task, it is quite possible to meet this requirement in an 8-10 hour day. It makes more sense to assign these pt's. to a clinician who possilby works a longer work day for the sake of productivity.

You obviously are working in a more fair and enlightened environment than the one I am describing.

There are no extra points for patients great distances from each other of 50 to 150 miles apart. The nurse is expected to drive this distance and complete the 28-32 points per week regardless of the distance driven.

[carwin]

EE you and fellow clinicians need to get together in a professional way so that you come across business-like and not as whiners. See if clinicians are spread out geographically smart. Are there 2 people working over each other? See were clinicians live and let them establish that area as their area. If two live in the same area, whomever was there there first gets the area. As more clinicians come on board, they can start helping out in an area thereby dividing the work in half.

If you are charting point-of-care great! If you're on paper, mail in paperwork 2x per week. Make sure you call in your starts, ROCs, recerts and D/C to the off as soon as the visit is finished.

For supplies suggest the agency use a company that will drop-ship supplies to patient and bag supplies to the nurses' homes. Use lab-in-a-box for blood work.

I always say that clinicians have to think of themselves as a business and cut their expenses as the agency does.