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Know what? I had just been thinking about doing that, but wondering how a shift at someone else's home would feel. I am going to go ahead and apply for shift work at another agency that is advertising locally. Thank you for your response!

I've come to realize that home health isn't for me. Working 8 hrs/day, driving all over and then coming home to hours of paperwork. I've been in HH for about 15 months, prior to that I worked ICU for 1 year. I'm having a hard time even getting an interview for jobs other than HH, and I live in a large city: Austin, TX. Is this common? Once in HH, always in HH? Thanks for your input :-)

NURSEBY07, I am glad that we have this place to share. There are horror stories, but then there are the stories like yours that give some of us hope that there are companies out there that do care about their patients and their nurses. In all honesty I have been so down about my current job situation that I've been thinking about taking a break, not only from HH, but from nursing all together.

muffin7, The first company I left, because they were doing things that seemed "fishy" to me. At least 80% of the census were patients that had been on service for years. One episode would be billed for DM as main dx, next episode for HTN, third episode back to DM, fourth on HTN, fifth... you get the point. I was taught that only the last 2 episodes are kept in the chart and that if audited, those 2 episodes were the only ones the state would see. On top of that, many patients were not homebound, they were driving on a daily basis and management knew it well. The last thing that did it for me was when our manager asked a nurse to make up a recert OASIS because the recert window had been missed, it was billed as a "recert visit". I ran out of there fast!!! I still have much to learn about HH, but common sense told me that was fraud. I do not want to mess with the feds in order to keep my manager happy. The company I currently work with does not have any of those issues, the problem we have is that they keep accepting referrals even though we don't have the staff to care for the patients and even accept patients as far as 2 hour away drive!!! How in the world are we supposed to provide adequate care to pts who live so far away??? As a result nurses seem to only have time for a quick assessment and then on to the next patient... at the end of the day, you try to put everything together but often don't have time to finish and you start falling behind. You fall behind one, two, three days, then a week, then 2 weeks, then a month!!! You ask management for office time and you are told we can't right now, next week we'll try... Next week comes along and then the same story. Oh, this is where it gets interesting because at this point you have fallen so far behind the billing department is on your tail asking you to finish this and the other so they can get paid, LVNs are out there working without orders because the RNs have not been able to finish the 485s. Like someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, when you finally burn out and have a mental break down is there anyone there for you??? NO!!! In fact, when I called in sick my phone kept ringing all day... You then realize you don't matter as nurse to them, much less as a person... Morale is way down around here guys... Can you tell? ;-)

I normally don't post on forums, I usually just read and learn but today I felt like I needed someone who "has been there" to listen. Then I come here, and read other posts that sound just like me. We work, work, work from 8-5, then come home, work more...STOP!!! dinner must be prepared! so I pull out a Sam's frozen dinner, pop it in the microwave for 15 minutes and yell "Dinner is ready" I grab my plate and go back to hiding in my room to continue charting, of course I'm stepping all over dirty laundry on my way to my room, because guess what??? No time for that either!!! Went away for Easter weekend and, of course, my charts and laptop went with me... Why am I doing this to myself??? Because, like others I am afraid I won't be able to find another job... even more afraid that the next one will be worse... This is the second HHA I worked for in the past 10 months and, also like others, considering going back to the hospital where you can leave your work behind you at the end of the shift... Thanks for letting me vent!