sweetsugar

I've been a home health nurse now for about five years. One of the biggest complaints I have has been "why am I working so much and not getting paid for my time?" I searched through the various posts on this thread and I see that other home health ...

I had a patient who met me drunk and naked at the front door every time I went to see him. I kinda drew the line when he pee'd on me, though.

11-15 patients a day? I call that "drive-by nursing". Sorry, just my humble opinion . . .

From personal experience, if the patient is A&OX4, oftentimes, nothing happens with the State. They will talk to the resident; and, if the resident feels okay with her environment, they are going to back out quietly. What happens to you is anot...

If anyone can prove that their OASIS answers are, indeed, being changed--I would definitely contact a Qui Tam lawyer. With regard to changing benign hypertension to malignant hypertension, this is a prime example of "upcoding" to increase HHRG score...

KateRN is absolutely correct with regard to the OASIS collection rules by Medicare. However, 1) the weekend RN should have the option of completing a skilled nurse visit along with the consents and admission paperwork. Then, the RN picking up the cas...

I can relay from personal experience as someone who did call every other weekend at a rural home health agency--it was a nightmare. I do not understand why but it seemed that the worst of the worst patients came out of the hospitals on Friday and we...

You might not be homebound if your nurse has to schedule your visits each time before 11:00 a.m. so that you can drive yourself to the casino for lunch and a little slot machine action

To all home health nurses who have ever felt pressured by office staff regarding whether or not a patient needs recertified or not, the attached MedPAC Report to Congress dated March 2011 should shed some new insight for field RNs. Also, to field RN...

If there are any nurses (or therapists) out there who have any personal knowledge about how the frequencies are determined by the physical and occupational therapies for Amedisys' Balanced for Life Program, the House Senate and Finance Committee is v...

I agree fully with your last comment--if we are dealing only with skilled nursing visits. I would have NEVER left home health nursing if all I had to do each day was skilled nurse visits. However, home health agencies have drifted towards a nurse c...

As I said previously . . . we will let the Department of Labor decide about that. As I recall--when I worked at the hospital, if I needed to spend extra time documenting after a crazy shift, I got paid for every minute of my shift. I did not clock ...

We will just have to wait and see what the Department of Labor's viewpoint is on the matter of unpaid overtime. I believe any patient in the home would rather a nurse pay attention to them during the visit rather than trying to get documentation com...

Actually, just Google the following: Staff Report on Home Health and the Medicare Threshold. That will bring up the October 3, 2011, House & Senate Finance Committee's full report. Very interesting reading.

I did not realize that Gentiva had been fined for fraud. LHC in Louisiana received a $65 million fine in September 2011 for fraud. Both of these fines do not have anything to do with the October 3, 2011, report from the House and Senate Finance Com...

This is going to be a rather strange post, I fear. I am taking a global health class right now in pursuit of my masters degree. The topic at hand is health disparities between wealthy and poor countries. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying i...

Goodness . . . they are still selling that Scantron system? I wanted to poke my eyes out with that stupid pen by the end of the day!

Please keep us posted of any response you get. That would be quite an incentive to make other nurses take a stand on this unpaid overtime issue.

It is NOT about time management. I was a legal secretary in Washington, D.C. before I became a nurse. I type well over 100 wpm. I am organized as all get out. In rural areas, the drive to a patient's house--on average is one-half hour. The visit...

My personal best was when the clinical manager called me to tell me that a patient had called and left a message for her to call him back. She asked if I could call to see what he wanted.

I cannot stress it enough - complain to the state and federal authorities on labor laws. The Gentiva lawsuit is only a starting point on this issue of unpaid overtime. Contact the attorneys for Gentiva--they are also interested in what home health ...

My mother and aunt make more than that per hour working at a shoe factory. They don't ever have any complaints about their jobs. They are both in their 60's and tell me they plan to work for as long as they can because they love their jobs so much ...

You need a very "thick" skin . . .

I once handed a patient his inhaler as he was becoming short of breath. When I turned it around and looked inside of the thing, it was packed with cockroaches. Talk about gross!!! Then, I thought about "what could have happened" and--in my mind--I...

That is why -- after five years in the home health industry -- I have decided to hang up my car keys. I could not keep up with that pace. I am beginning my RN to MSN this August. I did not want to go "back" to hospital nursing so my only other cho...