i am an rn with 11 year experience in a hospital setting. i am considering moving into home health care and am really excited. as i am the sole breadwinner in my family (hubby is a stay-at-home dad with 4 children under the age of 7), i am most concerned about pay rates and benefits. i interviewed with a suburban chicago home care company today who offered me $44/visit, $77/admission visit, company car with paid gas/repairs/maintenance that i may also use for private use and that my spouse may also drive (i will pay $90/month). bcbs ppo with $1500/year deductible (the company pays for the 1st $1000 (so you only responsible for $500 out-of-pocket per year for family coverage). this plans costs about $80/week. guardian dental/vsp vision, another $20-30/week. you are expected to see 6-patients per day (30 per week). all supplied are included. completely paperless charting. portable pt/inr, glucometer and pulse ox devices included. hours are from 8am-5:00 pm mon-fri. i have to work one weekend per month and take call one weekend per month. i also have to work 2-holidays per year. they only offer 120 hours pto time though (15 days for sick/personal/vacation time). the pto seems really low. every hospital i've worked for has given me 2-weeks paid vacation per year plus sick days (at the very minimum). the pay will work out to be about the same as the hospital job i'm leaving. however, my hospital job offers 3-weeks vacation/yr, 2-personal days per year and 3-sick days per year but with much more expensive benefits ($700/mo for bcbs family ppo with a $1200 deductible).
so, my question is to the home health rns out there, is this a good offer from the home health company? should i expect more $$ per visit (some local friends have suggested other companies pay much more but they didn't know about benefits)?? are any of these terms negotiable (pay per visit/pto time)?? new to this so i just want to be sure before i leap!
also, generally, once i see my 6 patients/day, am i "done" for the day besides paperwork? or am i expected to continue to see more patients until 5pm?? not sure how this works...
Honestly, I'm currently working home health intermittent visits solely computerized and it is no faster (sometimes actually slower) than the paper systems I've done in the past.
The programs are overly detailed and ask for so much information that there is no speed to the documentation. Also, many times the program gets hung up and in those cases I have to shut down the computer and start all over again.
I wonder how other home health nurses feel about their computerized programs?
that is why no computer (POS) or program (POS) i get or "have" to use for the job seems to work, haha.
ItsTheDude
621 Posts
that is why no computer (POS) or program (POS) i get or "have" to use for the job seems to work, haha.