Please give me advice on whether or not I should take this job

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I was just recently became a registered nurse in july and have been applying to hospital jobs like crazy and not even got as much as an interview. For the last 2 years while in nursing school I have worked as a home health aide. Last week my work offered me an RN position as a home health nurse. Ideally this is not what I want to do, but its a job. The pay is kinda crap, $27 per visit. Only one day of orientation, which is non-paid!! The first time I go out to a client's house would be observing another RN and that pays $10/hr!! It would be 6 months before I get any benefits, my health insurance I got through my mom is up in december, so that doesn't really work. I guess the thing I am most apprehensive about is the lack of training. I've talked to 3 different nurses who told me I really need to get a hospital job to get good learning experience, but I feel like if I don't take this job who knows how long I might be waiting.Just wondering what you experienced or newly employed nurses think of a new grad working as a home health nurse?? I need to let them know by tomorrow morning, and I really don't know what to do.

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Specializes in acute care.

Do you know what kind of cases they will send you on? Maybe start you off with 'lighter cases' until you become more comfortable.

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I would take the job and still keep applying to other ones. $27 doesn't seem like much per visit, but I am not familiar with the pay rate for home health care. If you see 5 or 6 pts a day that's not bad, unless you have to drive far from your home to do it. If you can set your own schedule and are working days, that sounds good. Do you have to work weekends?

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They said continuous care, med set ups, a tube feeding, and possibly a trach patient.

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Specializes in acute care.
They said continuous care, med set ups, a tube feeding, and possibly a trach patient.

Hmmmm, honestly...I, personally, would take it but also keep looking. At the end of the day, do what you feel comfortable with.

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I'm sure you made your decision already but I figure I could give you an idea of home health.

$27/visit is pretty low but I guess it depends on where you live. I work with a home health agency here in Houston, TX. I started off as a quality assurance nurse in the office just to get my feet wet and soon they were offering me patients. I get $40-60/visit, depends on the case and distance. I think it's a great supplemental income in addition to working at an LTAC. Most of the time you get about 6-8 patients which can be done in a day or split up through out the week. I prefer getting them done in a day. Some patients, especially wound care, may be daily bid. Some patients are only vitals and you're out in 15 minutes. Some patients are as you said: trache, tube feedings, foley cath changes, wound care, etc and you are there 30-60 min. Only thing you may not like is that you may have 8 patients per week for 3 weeks and the 4th week you may only 5. So your income won't be consistent. Most of the nurses I work with have a hospital job or work with a second agency. Good luck.

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Thanks for all the advice. I went ahead and took the position. The job market in Ohio is terrible right now so who knows when I might even get another interview. I'm still going to be looking for a hospital job though.

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Take the job and stay for atleast 6 months... I took an inpatient psych position 50 min away 3rd shift after putting out over 100 apps. Now i'm in a subacute 25 min from my house. Gonna start looking for a hospital job in another 6 months. Our nursing generation will be stronger do to the extra work were putting in. I have friends who love VNA

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