How many patients do you see each day?

And how far do you drive? Do you do your own schedule or do you have office staff give you a daily schedule? What do your PRN nurses do? Do they do admits? Do they have primary patients? How often to you have to take overnight call? How often do you work weekends?

How many hours do you work in a day and in a week?

[Vtachy1]

I guess it is normal and everyone works 16 or more hours a day? We are not anything out of the ordinary?

I see 4 sometimes 5 pts a day, I work m-f and rarely take or have to do on call. I work about 12 hours or more a day when you add in documentation time and I drive 40-60 miles a day. And I love my job. I rarely do admissions, I do all home care, 2 facility patients right now and sometimes GIP in one hospital

[AtlantaRN, RN]

no, 16hrs a day is not normal. Our case managers work 8-10 hrs a day, but if they get near overtime, they can usually take part of a day off (corporate does not like ot). cms see 4-6 pts a day, more if they are in a facility and driving is not an issue.

Feeling very overwhelmed.. New hospice nurse with about 3 years icu experience and I have 17 patients. I've done 2 admits in the llast two days and take on call once a week. This is my 3rd week on the job, not counting the first week I spent doing computer training. I have a few, what I consider, very difficult patients too... If they see u have a moments rest they want to put other assignments on u from other nurses that are sick or overloaded as well so I feel like I can never get a break til the weekend. The patients spin in my head all day and night...

[tewdles, RN]

Feeling very overwhelmed.. New hospice nurse with about 3 years icu experience and I have 17 patients. I've done 2 admits in the llast two days and take on call once a week. This is my 3rd week on the job, not counting the first week I spent doing computer training. I have a few, what I consider, very difficult patients too... If they see u have a moments rest they want to put other assignments on u from other nurses that are sick or overloaded as well so I feel like I can never get a break til the weekend. The patients spin in my head all day and night...

Please talk with your management about this. You will burn out (develop compassion fatigue) if you are not able to care for yourself with this workload.

Unless those 17 patients are residing in LTCs so that your travel time is minimal, that is too many cases for a single visiting case manager...especially a new one.

[Vtachy1]

Feeling very overwhelmed.. New hospice nurse with about 3 years icu experience and I have 17 patients. I've done 2 admits in the llast two days and take on call once a week. This is my 3rd week on the job, not counting the first week I spent doing computer training. I have a few, what I consider, very difficult patients too... If they see u have a moments rest they want to put other assignments on u from other nurses that are sick or overloaded as well so I feel like I can never get a break til the weekend. The patients spin in my head all day and night...

This is exactly how our hospice is. Each full time nurse has at least 20 patients. See about 7 per day and we cover a very large area 17 counties so its very normal to drive over 120 miles in a day. How often do you take call during the night?

I actually want to go to work with Atlanta Nurse because I'm recognizing a similar trend in our area and with neighboring hospices with long hours, pt overload, night and weekend call. We live and breathe our pts, always short-handed because most nurses will not coninue working under these conditions. I've worked hospice 10+ years and have left twice over the years because of burnout but always come back because i love hospice. Yes, you have to take care of yourself but is your company taking care of you, also?

I have 13 patients currently. Six of them are located in on facility. I drive around 40 - 65 miles a day, that's including my home trip. I select how I see my patients. We are on call monday thru thursday for our own patients only. We have a weekend and holiday on call nurse.