I quit my Home Health Nursing job!

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I worked for a rather large HHC here in the South. The GM was new, the DON started after I did and the Patient Care Coordinator started one week prior. I was seeing patients all over

town, driving 150 miles per day without a gas allowance or mileage, paid salary.

They had me going in 5 different directions everyday. One morning, I was home finishing

2 Oasis from the evening prior and was called to "come into the office" to do the paperwork.

The office was approx. 45 minutes south of where I needed to do a SOC that morning. (one hour from my house), so it didn't make sense for me to drive all the way to the office.

Reluctantly I went into the office and was met with a "meeting" of why I had to start coming into the office everyday if I did not have a patient to see that morning. (Office is one hour

from my house)

Basically, it went downhill from there. Promises made to me were never kept, and I felt

that I was being set up to fail. No one knew their role, and everybody was shouting orders at me without any logic.

So now I am unemployed but with license in hand without any blemishes!

Thoughts?

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

I really wish I could quit my job. Unfortunately I'm the breadwinner.

I feel like my choice at this point is: keep living like this, because it really has become my whole life... or go back to working in some horrific nursing home, desperate for nurses. I'm up for a good job that I have a good chance of getting... but I'm pretty nervous that I won't get it.

Specializes in Home Health.

This sounds like what I am going through. I've been with my current company for 2 1/2 years and things just started recently going downhill... 150 mile days, 10+ visit days, ridiculous expectations: (IV cases 4x daily starting at 6am.) I finally told my boss that I was overwhelmed... Her response, "You don't have that many visits". Um, I see almost 30 patients a week. I have 2 kids and a husband that I barely see. We are on call 24/7, because the patients always call our cell phones. On call every 3rd weekend, with no pay for being on call. A disrespectful boss who belittles you behind your back. A patient care coordinator who just started who thinks she is a supervisor. It never ends. I'd like to get into another field of nursing, but don't know where to go from here. I'm just tired of working for a company that doesn't have it together. Oh and did I mention that my supervisor has been a nurse just as long as I have (4 years) and has NO HOME HEALTH EXPERIENCE?! Where are all the companies that value good nurses??

Where did you guys end up after home care?

I have been a nurse for over 20 years and after a couple years in CVICU/SICU, I changed to home health And did that 8 years.Then school nursing, 10 years, we moved and I returned to home health/started seeing hospice. In my opinion, every change made in the last 20 years has made the home health/hospice career unbearable for any sustainable length of time. When I was working hospice in a rural area, i could be covering 3 to 4 counties on the same day,often having to criss cross if patient was declining. I loved my patients and there is nothing more frustrating than when a hospice patient and family needed you and you were 2 counties away. Its not fair fo the patients or the nurse.I would often be on the road 10 to 12 hours and then have more documentation to complete when i got home. After 2 years, I simply couldn't do it anymore. We moved back to an urban area, I worked home health until I was able to get back to school nursing. I still do PRN home health on the side to supplement my income with a different agency. I'M just wondering if theres any older home health nurses have experienced these same frustrations? The agency I left,I was basically told, "oh noone lasts over a year!" you would think they would look for ways to improve things, prevent turnover, but they don't seem to care! They'll just hire someone else and work them to exhaustion then move on to the next. As for school nursing, it is what it is.L Less money, frequent fliers, It has its own brand of stress but theres no homework and lots of vacations. vacations. Not a day goes by that a student doesnt give me a chuckle. Its not as fufilling as hospice or home health. The new agency i do prn home health for has a great supervisor, good nurses, but just working there as much as i do,its convinced me that I couldn't return to it full time.

It didn't take me long to figure out that home health visits were not cutting it as far as employment goes. I returned to extended care where there can be some semblance of stability from one day to the next, one paycheck to the next. I might have reconsidered had I been provided a company car, company cell phone, a reasonable rate of pay, including compensation for all time worked, etc. Since that is not the norm, I guess the intermittent visit side of the house won't be seeing much of me.

Salary just plain SUCKS!! How can one be expected to be happy themselves when their entire days and nights are spent making them happy?

Specializes in Registered Nurse.

Thanks for your insight into home health and school nursing. Many nurses who work home care do so part time, in addition to another job, to supplement income. It's just too difficult to work full time home health job for the reasons you have stated. The school nursing sounds good, but it's a difficult area to get into if you don't have the pediatric experience. Some states have restrictive practice requirement when it comes to the practice of school nursing. I wanted to pursue the school nursing, but had to have a special certification in the state where I practice.

I'm nervous I'll have no life! Gonna give it a good year:-).

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

Wendy

I'm nervous I'll have no life! Gonna give it a good year:-).

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

Wendy

You won't be able to do it at first, you have to learn the job pretty much inside out, but I just took a mid week mid morning riding lesson last week because that's when my trainer was available, I saw two patients on my way there and 4 afterwards. Then this weekend while in San Francisco with the boyfriend I decided to stay over extra on Sunday night and cruised home Monday morning for an afternoon of patients, used that commute time for making calls (love the Bluetooth feature in my car) On top of having the whole weekend off. I did both because I could with my flex scheduling. Or I could have gotten an early start each day and had the afternoons off.

Specializes in Hospice.

I left hospital nursing over 10 years ago. Went into Home Care, which over time nearly sucked out my will to live. The travel was hideous, the paperwork crept into my private life, I was salaried, so taking into account the 12-14 hour days I frequently put in, it sometimes averaged out to just a tad more than minimum wage. Then went to Hospice, took to it like a duck to water. I'm on the downside of my career (58 years old, 36 of them as an RN), and the pace and philosophy of Hospice are what I need. Truthfully, if every Nursing job but hospital nursing suddenly disappeared, I would work as a Walmart greeter.

I have been in home health for almost 14 years and sooo tired of not having the weekend to relax because of the damn charting.However, where do I go at 51 yrs of age after home health?

 I think you can survive better on per diem, why? you can dictate your days of availability, weekly. After I did HH FT for 2.5 yrs, dropped to per diem and it was never the same. I can choose to work as many days as I want or not at all.

Charting is always the big downside, the worse is management, schedulers and whoever surrogates that are sent your way. As I always say, to many chefs in the kitchen or to many hands in the pot. Same thing.

Do not ever feel that you have to chart in the office, they have to do the same thing to others and not just you, otherwise, they are discriminating. You may argue, as long as charting is done (on time or delayed...mostly) but the work itself would intimidate your supervisor. Use it accordingly and if it fails to make the change, I guess you have to find your bliss. Good luck!

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