How many do this?

merlee · Jun 24, 2012

No. I worked M-F with occasional weekends, and on-call. But not 7 days a week. Why are so many home health patients being seen on the weekends? Just daily dressings and the occasional admit.

And someone needs to look carefully at how your assignments are being made to cut down on your driving. We had a giant wal map so it was easy to determine territories. GPS doesn't cut it for making recurrent assignments, or even a daily list. Only a map will do, so you can get the bigger picture of your day.

Then try to 'clump' your patients by geography, as best you can.

Best wishes!!

emilysmom,RN · Jun 24, 2012

Problem is we only have one nurse on for weekends. Even the part timers don't work to many weekends. Our office covers 2 counties. The main office opened a territory before it was staffed. One of the reasons I am leaving. They do not support the offices they do have before going into new areas. Most of our full time nurses see Pts 6-7 days a week. We get paid per visit.

Mom2boysRN · Jun 25, 2012

I work M-F 8-4 I have on call about once per month. When you are on call you answer calls that come into the answering service after hours and on the weekend you may have to do some SOCs, visits if it's someone that really has to be seen on the weekend of if it's something like a cath came out for someone with retention issues. During the week most days I'm not expected to see more than 5 people on most days, I do have some days where I see 6. I drive about 70-100 miles per day.

emilysmom,RN · Jun 25, 2012

We have alot of daily and everyother day wound care. Since we have such a large territory and only one nurse that makes many visits far apart. And we still have 5-8 a day all week.

NCIANurse · Jul 20, 2012

We cover 7 counties, my territory is at least 20 miles from the office, but I get paid milage. I see between 6-8 pt's per day (but last week hit my all time high of 12) we are on call from 4:30pm to 8am next working day, and we each do this 1 out of every 3 days. We are also on call Friday from 4:30 till Monday at 0800 every third weekend. On the weekend we see daily dsg changes, SOC, admits, etc. Right now if we are on call on the weekend we work Monday of week 1 straight through until Friday of week 2. They are working on implementing policy to have us take the friday before the weekend off, which would mean 4 days on, 1 day off, 7 days on. I'm TIRED, but the $$ is goooood, so I don't complain too often.

adamsmom2 · Jul 20, 2012

I recently left home health for that reason. I have two school aged children and was seeing pts seven days a week. Was having my sixteen year old getting dinner ready and my Mom guilt became too great. I am making less money but many of my friends and family encouraged me to make the change. I have saved up alot of money while working in HH. I did stay on per diem and kept one pt. So if things get too tight I will work a weekend once in a while but on my say not theres.

KateRN1 · Jul 21, 2012

We have alot of daily and everyother day wound care. Since we have such a large territory and only one nurse that makes many visits far apart. And we still have 5-8 a day all week.

A little off-topic, but sounds like you need a good wound care consultant. Daily dressing changes should be few and far between, interrupting the wound bed that often is more likely to delay wound healing.

adamsmom2 · Jul 21, 2012

I agree I think all H H companies should have certified wound nurses and not just have field nurses try most MD expect all HH nurses are wound nurses and expect them to tell them what to use. I am not that knowledgeable.

Susan317 · Jul 23, 2012

Or they should a wound clinic nearby to refer their patients to, which is what I do.