OASIS nurses??

NanciP · Mar 19, 2010

In some of the agencies I have worked for, the OASIS nurse is actually the nurse that does the OASIS reviews and verifies that the information on the forms flows well and meets the Medicare criteria. Often agencies want the OASIS nurse to become OASIS certified, which i hear is a bugger, but if they are willing to hire you than they should be willing to train you on the OASIS and assist you in getting the appropriate education. GOOD LUCK!!

caliotter3 · Mar 20, 2010

Hope you find the job description during the interview challenging and that you are chosen for the job.

aubreysmommy · Mar 20, 2010

Thanks, I actually got the job!!! I am really excited and nervous too. I will be responsible (along with another Oasis RN) for performing all initial, recert, discharge assessments. I am really looking forward to the challenge and the flexibility of the job. I am being realistic though, I know that compared to my current job, I am gonna be overwhelmed at first.

chenoaspirit, ASN, RN · Mar 20, 2010

I hope they pay you good! I hate doing OASIS'. Compared to what we get paid and the amount of paperwork, I would make more money and would rather make 2 regular visits and have ALOT less paperwork. The OASIS is so long because along with it is the fall risk assessment, the home eval, the med list, the consent forms, etc. Just alot alot alot of paperwork. I would have to get paid very well before Id be willing to do all that paperwork. Plus if you dont know the patients very well, it will be hard to recert and discharge a patient. I know, Im being negative, sorry. Good luck and I hope you like it!

aubreysmommy · Mar 20, 2010

Thanks for all the positivity!lol Its ok, I dont doubt that it will be challenging. I have a business/data analyst background so I am kinda weird and enjoy paperwork. But we will see. I know it will be tough but I am gonna give it a go. And honestly I am not getting paid MUCH more than what I was getting as a private duty nurse (I was being paid well for PDN, for this area). Just curious, what is a good rate?? Any clue?

KateRN1 · Mar 22, 2010

Well, considering that an average SOC takes me at least 2 hours in the patient's home and then another hour or 2 afterwards to complete, I'd have to say that $100 per SOC would be about right. Recerts and discharges may be difficult if you don't know the patients well, but at least they don't take as long, maybe an hour and a half all together. Are you being paid per visit or by the hour or salary? And will you also be case-managing the patients and doing LPN supervisory visits? How many visits will you be expected to do per day or week? How large of an area will you cover? There's a lot to determining whether you're getting a decent rate.

aubreysmommy · Mar 22, 2010

Well, of course they tell you one thing when they hire you and then may do something totally different BUT since my title is Oasis RN, my job is only to do those visits that require an Oasis. If there are not any available on a given day......then I may do other visits, but not case mgmt or sup visits. I am not positive how many pts they expect me to see, its based on a points system and I ma not sure how that works yet. I will be salary and covering quite a large area, but there is another Oasis nurse that I will share responsibility with. I do know that if I have to do call or do other visits other than the Oasis visits then I will be paid by visit for those! So, what do you think?

KateRN1 · Mar 22, 2010

I think it sounds like they're having LPNs do the revisits while you do all the stuff that requires an RN--meaning you will end up getting paid less per hour than the LPNs and will have far more hassle and headache. Do they also have RNs who do revists? And who will be doing the sup visits for the LPNs and home health aides?

aubreysmommy · Mar 23, 2010

They have other RN's that do revisits and sup visits. From what I understand I will only be doing those visits that require an OASIS. Guess I will find out when I start.....

copperkettle · Mar 23, 2010

If your system is organized so you can easily communicate with the nurses doing the visits, it will make your life much easier if you can see in advance when a recert or discharge is coming up, and ask the nurses who have seen the patients to provide you with the summary of info you need, including DATES of ER visits or admissions, and other specific events the OASIS will ask you about. If your agency does not use Case Managers who should be able to give you this info, maybe you could encourage some kind of sequential event journal system on each patient for such information. I say this because I sometimes have to do a recert or discharge on a patient I have never seen, and have to dig back through every visit to find out when they were in the hospital, or to get enough of the picture to construct a "summary" of what has taken place in the past 2 months. It has often taken me several hours to do an accurate recert or discharge, when it would have taken the Case Manager less than one, because they have the info in their head or personal notes.

Good luck in your new position. Keep us posted on how it's going for you. I love doing Home Health. The individual patients I get to know make the "paperwork" bearable. (Isn't it funny we still call it "paperwork" when we're mostly using computers???)

aubreysmommy · Mar 23, 2010

copperkettle: thanks for that very helpful advice. It really does seem that this agency is very organized. I had a general idea of HH agencies and it was that they were very unorganized and not very concerned with employee satisfaction. I work for one now and NEVER see my sup and get my employee evaluation in the mail every year! So, far this company seems very concerned with keeping their employees happy. They actually have a 90 day orientation period which I am really happy about, since I have no experience with doing an Oasis. They have an employee health nurse, a documentation analyst (to ensure that everything is up to par), they have 2 telephone triage nurses and will now have 2 Oasis nurses. Then of course they have many HH RN's and HHA's. They provide a cell phone and a laptop and pay mileage. I will be salaried, which is good and bad. So, if I figure out how to get all my work done early every day then that works out great but in the beginning when it may take me MANY hours to get my job done, that salary will not look so good. But I am so unhappy where I am that I am willing to stick with this for a while. So, does the structure of this organization sound like most HH agencies you know of? better or worse? Thanks for any info or advice.