Nurse Manager/Admissions Coordinator

[GeriatricNurseJen]

Hi Fellow Nurses,

I am looking to get a little feedback on my current working situation, and see if any of you have ever heard of anything like this before.

I have been a nurse for 7 years now. Long term care was the last place that I expected to end up in, but after graduation it was the only place I could find a job as a new graduation. The short of it is I have fallen in love with long term care and hospice and not could never imagine working in the hospital.

Dec. 31, 2015 our nurse manager retired. The initial plan was for the MDS/Admissions coordinator to become nurse manager and for myself to move from the floor to MDS/Admissions coordinator. About three weeks into this plan the floor had largely spoken that his was not practical. Having been the charge nurse and been directly involved on the everyday workings of the floor for the previous six years, the nurses were coming to me with all the issues. As a team we got the hint and I became the nurse manager.

I finally started to feel like I was getting my feet under me as the nurse manager, and my DON said that the combination of MDS and admissions was not working as we were falling behind in the MDSs. Thus, I became Nurse Manager and Admissions Coordinator. For three months now I have been trying to do both jobs and am falling further and further behind to admission and looking a referrals. Have any of you ever seen the combination of positions in long term care? If so what are they?

Thanks, Jen

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

How big is your unit/ facility? I am in a 50 bed facility.

MDS nurse should do just that. I can't imagine having enough time to do anything but MDS, care planning and updates for managed care.

We have a referral manager/ admissions coordinator. This person does just that. They visit hospitals and make calls. They are more of a sales/ marketing person. Not a nurse.

We have not admissions nurse. We try to staff with 3 nurses with the RN being the charge nurse and handling the admissions.

[GeriatricNurseJen]

We are a 37 bed Dual licensed SNF/NF facility. Thought normally we have more hospice patients than skilled as we enjoy a close relationship with our local hospice agency and with the Hospice House.

I think I knew that it was never really appropriate for the MDS coordinator to do admission. We worked together with them. However, since having taken over solely on them I feel as if I am stuggling even more to figure out my role as a new nurse manager.

On the whole I feel like we are a little like a ship without a captain right now. And I need to figure out how to be the captain a lot quicker right now. I have planned a meeting with my DON for tomorrow for a heart to heart and see what can be done to improve things.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I know the feeling well. I was a care manager (RCM, or MDS nurse) and admissions coordinator for a small SNF/LTC for about 10 months back in 2001. I lasted that long only because the facility kept bribing me with raises. I was salaried and worked at least 20 hours for free each week; sometimes I even had to come in to start IVs or work the floor. I also had to go out to visit area hospitals, assisted-living facilities and prospective residents' homes to determine whether they qualified for admission, AND coordinate the process of getting them in (AND out).

Needless to say, the job exhausted me, and I quit when another company promised me a similar but much easier position as strictly an MDS nurse.