I want to try out Home Health.

caliotter3 · Jan 6, 2010

Research the reputation of hh agencies here, at work with other nurses who may do part time shifts to supplement their hospital jobs, on websites like the forums at indeed.com and jobvent.com. Any hh agency would hire you with your present qualifications. Decide if you want to do intermittent visits or extended care (shifts). Extended care is routine care for stable patients. Intermittent visits gives you the variety, but also the headaches. Unless you are lucky to get with a great company, you will find yourself facing a lot of uncompensated effort. Some nurses don't even get travel expenses paid for and you will find post after post on this forum about doing paperwork at home on your time and the horrors of being on call. Pay generally runs less than hospital. I prefer extended care because I only have to drive to one address and I am compensated for the time I am there. I do my one nursing note on the job and limit the demolition on my car from driving all over the world. But think about what you are looking for and read the threads here to get an idea. Good luck and hope you find that you like it.

HmarieD · Jan 6, 2010

Great response from Caliotter3. When I transitioned from acute care to HH, I took a pay cut, but I also went from a mid-size hospital in a more urban area to HH in my hometown, so if I had stayed in the urban area the pay may not have been much different. I eliminated an hour drive each way to the hospital so it was well worth it for me.

Working hours and demands will vary greatly from agency to agency. If you are looking at intermittent HH, where you see multiple pts for relatively short visits in a day, you should ask:

- How many pts will you be required to see in a day (I would have a hard time doing a good job with more than 6, and I've been doing this a long time)

- Do they give extra "weight" to certain assignments like Starts of Care (admissions) and other OASIS visits (they should but not all do)

- How often and for how long at a time will you be required to take call? Typically one day every week OR one week every 4-5 weeks, and one week-end every 4-5, although this can vary greatly.

- What is on-call compensation rate

- Do you have a case manager in the office to assist you in notifying MDs of lab results, taking phone orders, etc, or are you solely responsible

These are the main things I would ask off the top of my head. Again, review some old threads because this has been beaten to death.

If you want to get an idea of whether an agency provides quality care, go to www.medicare.org and look at Home Health Compare. You can look at one agency or compare multiple agency's pt outcomes. It was designed for consumers but is good for prospective employees as well.

I love home health and will never return to the floor. Good luck!

melissafin · Jan 9, 2010

I work for an HH Agency in central Alabama. I searched this board when I was looking @ HHAs. I wanted real #s. So when I started (2 yrs ago) I got $80 for an admission, $55 for recert/discharge/resumption/evaluation, and $35 for routine visit. I averaged 5-8 visits a day with a varied type of visits each day/week. We are paid weekly and my paycheck would be anywhere from $700 - 1200/week(take home pay). Honestly I make more money than I did at hospital in PACU with on call pay. But it is job that is feast or famine. They pay isn't always steady. For me the key to paperwork management was charting as much as possible in the home. I work for one of the larger nationwide agencies and I love my company. It is definitley a different beast from hospital nursing, and certainly a way to practice holistic nursing.