would like to work home hospice

[ohmeowzer RN, RN]

i would like to start working hospice . i have been a hospital RN for many years . the hospice nurses i have seen at the hospital are awesome and so caring toward their patients and families. i would like to do home care hospice. the questions i have is there enough hospice work for full time ? and have you ever had to go to any rough areas of town to take care of people? how did you protect yourself? are the benefits good? how do you get paid according to the hour or how many patients you saw? any information would be great ! i am getting older and cannot do the 12 hour or more hospital shifts at the hospital anymore. thank you all in advance !!

[Future FNP 14]

I worked hospice on call 15 yrs ago it has change. If you work on call weekend I would work with another rn we would split the day 12 hrs each. But I was single. Our company cover large chicago and suburbs. If you don't like to travel- driving this is not for you. The hardest part for me is telling their love ones that their relative is deceased. The nurse will pronounce the patient and we will call the funeral and give emotional support. Back then hospice was relatively new and our census was not high but u will also do house calls, admissions, etc. now hospice is everywhere, nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living. I would suggest you try per diem before jumping the boat. I was making 45,000 year 15 yrs ago so that was good money. Some hospice have 7 work dys and 7 off.

[softrbreeze]

I've worked home hospice for almost 8 yrs. I've worked for a large national company briefly and for a small local company for the majority of that time. Basically, I work Mon-Fri 8a-5p with 1 weekend per month on-call. There is a lot of driving involved, some of it at night and in rural areas. A GPS is very handy and common sense (for when the GPS fails) is essential. Yes, some of your visits are in bad neighborhoods. I've never had any trouble though. Most people of very respectful of what you are there to do. One older nurse I used to work with did take her large dog with her and left the dog in the car while she made the visits though. Some hospices pay by the hour and some pay a salary. Both the companies I've worked with paid by the hour. On-call can be terribly hectic, depending on how many patients are on census, how the company is marketed, and how well the case managers do their job. The large company I worked with was hell on their on-call nurses (and their employees in general) even though their census at that branch was roughly the same as the small hospice I worked for previously. At the company I'm with now, we can literally goes days without receiving any calls after hours. At the larger company, I once worked 21 hrs straight and was dead on my feet before falling into bed at 4:30 in the morning (8-5 that day then on-call that evening with an admission at 6pm followed by a death in a rural area that night). Good luck and I hope you enjoy it!

[TammyG]

Larger companies tend to hire separate nurses for case management (M-F 8-5) and on-call (all other hours), but in small companies you do both. RN case managers in my company are paid salaried, on-call are paid hourly (whether you get calls or no). I often go into southeast DC during the day and never have a problem. People are nice, streets are wide and clean. Going at night might be a different experience. I know our hospice has retired police they hire to escort nurses at night if they request.