OMG ! The price of gas! No reimbursement...

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I get $60 for admit, recerts, and resumps, and $40 for visits. I put about 150-200 miles per week on my car....with the price in gas almost $3.00/gallon and no reimbursement for gas I'm pondering what I should do. The HH agency is in a pickle right now because one of the regular RN's quite (We only have 6 nurses total, 3 RN's) I know I'll be asked to pick up some of her patients and they are 25-30 miles from me, one way, I think I'm going to have to refuse unless they cough up gas money or at least some help with the gas. How are you handling the price of gas?

Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
Maybe if y'all quit they'll figure out that they need to pay for gas.

Here's what I've been thinking. $60 for visits in my small town...cool. The reason they are $60 is because they are out of the metropolitan area even though I live out here.

$40 for visits in town. For $40 I have to drive 30-45 minutes each way, say 30 minutes for a visit, that's now 1 1/2 - 2 hours invested, then an hour of paperwork, now 2 1/2 - 3 hours invested and $40 pay. I say NO WAY!! Even for 2 hours total, which is an under-estimate, that's only $20/hr with no gas reimbursement or consideration for wear and tear on my car.

Since I got back from Vegas I found out one of the other RN's quit and the DON wants me to pick up some of her patients. They are $40 visits and are 30-45 minutes away. I told her "I'm sorry I'd like to help you out but no I'm not taking on any of those patients". I wanted to tell her that I had decided to go back to the hospital 1-2 days per week and do HH 1-2 days per week but since the other RN quit I didn't tell her yet.

As long as I stay PRN at the hospital then I have the option to back off for a while if I get to feeling burned out. The NM already knows it's under the condition that I do not float to the unit because of my eye sight. The last time they tried that I said "hey, I'm going home, not trying to be difficult but my eyes can't handle the lighting down there and it's as simple as that". The HH agency has been good to me but I can't be in it losing money.

Anyway that's what I'm thinking......any opinions?

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Specializes in Home health.

Every agency has its problems with staffing and as much as you might want to help.......you have to decide if you're making or losing money. Not to mention the wear and tear on your car. Plus I find ( when I have needed time off) they often don't remember all the times you have helped anyway.

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No answers, just a few thoughts.

Mileage expense is one of the largest expenses that an agency has sometimes bigger than salaries. Medicare reimbursement for home care has been frozen, Medicaid cuts are coming, private insurance doesn't pay enough to cover salary and benefits and MedPac is still telling CMS and congress that home care agencies are making money. That being said, mileage is one of the expenses that agencies can control. IRS allows 44.5 cents a mile, most agencies pay some if not all of that but more are not paying any mileage just to stay in business. We don't pay mileage, but a trip charge and that rate is adjusted every quarter depending on the average gas rate at the beginning of each quarter. Every time the gas prices rise this issue gets brought up and you again must weigh if the work and flexibility of this job is worth the expense of being on the road. Yes you can deduct mileage from you taxes if you can file a long form, but most find it more a bother than its worth and if you get any reimbursement, you usually don't have enough to deduct.

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That's exactly how I see it also. I think this will be a deal breaker for the Republican party and well it should be. I think I'll change to an Independent!

Me too. I'm OUT of both parties - too disgusted with each to vote for ANY of them.

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Specializes in Hemodialysis, Home Health.
I have a Durango that gets 12mi/gallon, dh has a Hyundai Santa Fe which I'm driving and it gets about 25-30mi/gallon. When we bought the Santa Fe it cost $16.00 to fill up, last week it was $47.50 !! dh works from home so the Durango pretty much stays parked. I wanted to trade it in on a smaller car but dh wants to keep it for now. I just can't help believing that Bush couldn't step in and doing something to control the price?

Dutch.. I drive a SantaFe as well. :) While gas here is still at $2.87/gal. (but not for long, I'm sure)... it sure has got our HH feathers ruffled! Our agency did increase our mileage reimbursement this week to 0.38 a mile. But while we get $60.00 for admits, we only get $30.00 for Post Hosp. ROC, and a mealsy $27.00 for Follow Ups/recert and only $23.00 for regular visits.

So I guess it all evens out in the end. Considering we don't have to fool with case mgt. or ICD9 diagnotics, I can live with it.

We do the MOOs, but the office staff does the ICD diagnostics. I love that.:D

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
Dutch.. I drive a SantaFe as well. :) While gas here is still at $2.87/gal. (but not for long, I'm sure)... it sure has got our HH feathers ruffled! Our agency did increase our mileage reimbursement this week to 0.38 a mile. But while we get $60.00 for admits, we only get $30.00 for Post Hosp. ROC, and a mealsy $27.00 for Follow Ups/recert and only $23.00 for regular visits.

So I guess it all evens out in the end. Considering we don't have to fool with case mgt. or ICD9 diagnotics, I can live with it.

We do the MOOs, but the office staff does the ICD diagnostics. I love that.:D

Jnette....hello fellow Santafe'er....anywho....I don't do the ICD diagnostics or the case mgt either. Yeah!

I did talk to the DON today and told her how I felt and she was very understanding but was like DON'T LEAVE ME !! It's getting very hard to get nurses into HH and we just had one RN quit to do HH travel nursing in California. I had never heard of HH travel nursing before but it makes sense, wherever there's a need. The DON did say she was going to talk to the owner about increasing our rates. The rates are the same as when they opened 5 years ago. Time for a raise! (I'm sure re-imbursement has gone up since that time?)

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I haven't heard of an agency in my area that reimburses for gas. Usually it's mileage reimbursement. The government rate is 43 cents but at one time my agency only gave a taxable, monthly "car allowance". Rarely even covered a week of gas. What i did, thanks to my accountant sister, was to keep careful records of my daily mileage and she took it off my taxes each tear. You have to subtract the first and last leg of the day, whether this is to patient homes or the office. I did get good tax returns then! I believe if you are reimbursed less then the government rate, you can take the difference in the amount off your taxes. Good luck!

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our company provides cars for the nurses and reimburse for the gas----

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