On Call Rotations in Home Health

[LAlarieRN]

I recently started a case management job with the home health agency that is owned by the corporation I have worked for, for almost 10 years. All of my experience has been in the SNF setting from floor nursing, to case management to DON. So far, I love home health care, but the only hang ups I have found are:

1.) I drive at least 100 miles per day because I drive an hour from my home just to get to where my visits are. Hopefully this will be slowing down as they have agreed to hire an LPN to help cover routine visits in that area. When I took the job I was told they would keep me close to home and I may have to drive where I am going one day a week of it was busy up there.

2.) We have an on call rotation that is horrendous. Because the area I help cover only has one other full time nurse, we are required to take on call every other week. The 3 other nurses that work for our agency in other territories only have to do every 3rd week on call. We do get paid per visit on the weekends and after hours ($35/routine and $65 per OASIS), but this is not nearly enough to cover the hours I drive plus documentation. On top of having to be on call 2 full weeks out of the month, they don't let us flex any of our time out during the week to compensate for time worked on the weekends. Therefore, we work 12 days in a row and only get 2 off. So 4 days off total in a month. It's crazy. Plus our clinical supervisor doesn't take an on call rotation at all, which I also think is crazy.

So my question is, is this normal?! It bothers me that all nurses in the agency aren't treated fairly across the board and that a couple of us get screwed with driving long distances every day and taking a more frequent on call rotation, especially when our supervisor doesn't help with on call weekends at all. I forgot to mention we have nurses that refuse to leave the radius of their hometown and they let them get away with it! I am seriously considering leaving this job after only two months and going back to one of our facilities, but I hate to do that, because I REALLY love home health!

[Haddoa]

We take a rotation that is a ROTATION which means we share it evenly. We do one week night a month and one weekend a month with another RN. Every 4-5 months you have no weekend but do 3 weeknights in the month (that is me this month and I would rather have a weekend haha) what is hurting you is your territory. I only drive about 30 miles a day with the occasional 50 but my pts start from 2 minutes from my house to like 15 at the furthest. Maybe look for a company that can get you closer to home? I also loooove home health but some of the stuff you mention would be a deal breaker for me. Good luck!!