allthesmallthings

I'm filing for unemployment insurance. Like a couple people here have said, it's about emotions, not about money. (If I get UI, then the max they will pay is about 22% of my salary.) But I feel that it's what I can do, to stand up for myself. Best-case scenario, the client doesn't fight it, or can't prove that they fired me for a good reason. Worst-case scenario, I get the new experience of filing for UI (which I've never done before). I do want the client to get maybe just one notification that I didn't just let them treat me unfairly, and maybe they have 5 minutes of their day disrupted by answering an email/phone call from the Department of Labor. Not a very Christian attitude, but I'm going with it. Anyway, maybe just that five minutes of disruption in their day will make them think twice about their termination process, for the next travel nurse that they hire.

Thanks! I'm glad things worked out for you. Yeah, I'm flirting with the idea of going back to a staff position where I'll have some more rights and ability to speak up for myself. And the opportunity to get two-way feedback from my managers on what I can improve on.

I literally just copy-pasted your post and put it into a word document. Your post is very helpful to me. It didn't tell me 100% what I WANTED to hear, but it probably told me a lot of what I needed to hear. And I think my future patients will be grateful to you, too! ? Thanks!

Wow. You really know what you're talking about! Ty. I took your advice on improving Pt skills by checking out Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People (in the Digital Age)" from the library. I'm checking out PanTravelers, too.

Hi. Today, at 530pm, my recruiter called, said that the home health company I work for was terminating my contract because of "multiple Pt complaints...poor bedside manner." I'm about 2/3 of the way through 13-week contract. This is the first I've heard of Pts complaining about me.. (Although I did have two patients in the last week who seemed unhappy. One was a lady who was unhappy that I asked to see her mom's pill bottles, and then when I pointed out that the hospital wanted her mom to stop one med, amantadine. But that lady seemed unhappy about a lot - she kept complaining about former healthcare workers, and seemed suspicious - "you must want to see my mom's meds because you nurses don't communicate." And then a Pt today, who told me to discharge him because "you home health people don't get to know me. None of you nurses have asked me to walk around so you can see my dyspnea on exertion." This was despite the fact that I'd educated him on COPD. At the end of the visit, he walked me out, said, "Thank you. You have terrible bedside. Goodbye." I was surprised, because I'm pretty sure that I've spent more time with him than any other nurse, sorting out his meds, calling his MDs, trying to keep him out of hospital, and the prior visit, he thanked me. So I kind of just chalked up today's visit to the Pt having some mental weirdness.) But...I've worked in home health for 4 or 5 years (about 3 years in travel). I've never been fired from these jobs (staff, or travel). I suspect that a few patients have asked not to have me again, but I don't remember a boss ever giving me feedback about Pt complaints in all those years. If I have terrible bedside manner, wouldn't that have popped up, some time in the last 4 or 5 years? I kind of wonder if it was just those two kind of strange Pts who complained about me to the client company. Plus, I know that one of the staff nurses has told me for a few weeks now that the office has trouble finding her enough Pts. Is it possible that the client company didn't really need a travel nurse (me) anymore, and used those two patient complaints to can me? I've been a nurse for 15 years, and sure, in the first few years (say, 2013), my boss told me that some patients called me "robotic." I had a concussion when I was seven (I'm 40 now), and this evening, when I was talking over the firing with my sister, she said, "Your affect changed after that 1992 concussion. Before then, you were happy and smiling. After the concussion, you got more serious. I think some people take you the wrong way - like, you maybe come off as blunt or abrasive to them. You need to smile more, make jokes, make people think you enjoy spending time with them." I am process-oriented and detail-oriented. I'll get very into doing a thing correctly (sterile technique, woundcare, medication reconciliation, calling MDs). And I like being efficient (although I will spend plenty of time when the situation warrants). But...before I got fired this evening, I didn't get the feeling that my patients didn't like me. At the end of the visit, they walk me to the door, smiling, saying, "Have a good day." Has anyone else had a "blindness" to the fact that they have a possibly bad bedside manner? If so, how do I fix it? Is there any effective way for me to ask the client company for feedback? Thanks.

I worked for them as a travel nurse. They are the only home health company that I have worked for as a travel nurse that has given me grief about my timesheets. (Although, when I did a staff position with another home health company, they also had a manager who told me to "fix" my timesheets.) However, it may have been partially specific to the manager? The first month or so with Amedisys, one manager was in charge, and she never rejected my timesheets. Then another manager comes along, and she nit-picked the timesheets. (Same thing with the staff position - my first managers were fine with my time; new manager had a problem with it.) Ironically, at some point, I realized that Amedisys had OVER-paid me one week. I emailed them, asking them to fix it. Never heard back! On the other hand: I just had a phone call with a recruiter, who specifically said that Amedisys is picky about productivity and timesheets, and will reject overtime hours billed if they think that your work week "shouldn't have taken so many hours." And another travel nurse I know said that Amedisys is well-known for screwing over employees.

Thank you!

Wow. Good point. Ty!

:) Thanks, kbrn2002. Good to know I'm not the only one annoyed. I will try the on-call provider route! :)

As a home health nurse, I have to call into MD offices to leave messages. Usually, I get non-medical front desk staff. I always get irritated w/ their inefficiency. E.g., they'll spiel me: "To better assist you, I just need some information about the patient. Can you tell me the patient's name?" Instead of just saying, "Pt's name. DOB. Your name. Your phone. Your message. OK, done." When it comes to actually leaving the message, I'll break down the medical-speak into bite-size pieces of a sentence - and if/when they mess it up, that's it for me. I'm just saying: if your job is literally writing down what a person says, IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE - how are you messing it up? ANyway, I lose my ***. I can't stand fake pleasantness and smarminess; I honestly just prefer efficiency. (Call me Sheldon Cooper.) But - I want to take the stress off myself of dreading these calls; and I would like to quit being a *** to the front desk people. (I can tell they think I'm rude.) I'm a Christian, and I know that my interactions w the front-desk phone people suck. Is there a way to mind-game the non-medical front desk people into being more efficient? Or is there a way to mindgame ME into quit thinking of my interactions w these people as a hair-pulling time-suck? Thanks

Lovely! ty. Yeah, looking back at this question 7 months after writing it, it seems logical to me that I can touch with sterile glove.

I was about to laugh...but then I thought, Its So TRUE. Not funny....but TRUEEEEE. I want a headlamp!

? Thank you

Oh, gosh. Hmm. Makes me think of one RN case manager that I knew, who very earnestly told me that she "has to" rate her patients as dependent in ALL fields (not just the fields they actually are dependent in). The reason? "We [the HHA] have to show improvement [which obviously, you can't do if they're not dependent to begin with]." I asked why she couldn't just rate Pts correctly - she just repeated, "We have to do this." Yeah, I was thinking, "Medicare Fraud!" And that someone had trained her wrong, or that management was giving her bad direction.

Wonderful. Succinct, Ms. Banana. Sounds good. Wow, someone who uses the word log!