Cheez-It!

I'm curious about CareStar. I've read some other threads about it, but they turn into arguments about stuff I'm not really interested in. I'm curious about as an LPN, how nurses handle things like, billing, state, etc etc. State visits facilities every month, do they require interviews or something with you? What are the wages like? How do you handle your taxes and billing? How do you handle patients that have wounds, such as dressing? Are those supplied by the patient or Medicaid? Do you do things for the patients like pick up meds for them? Do you call the doctors against their wishes, or do you have to go by what they want? Can you bill for mileage? About how much time on average do you get to spend with your family? What happens if you're needed on certain days, and you're not available for one of those days? This is the kind we are both curious about. In general, what's it like to work in a day as a CareStar nurse? I can read until I turn blue in the face on the CareStar websites, but it doesn't really tell me what it's really like! My mother is an RN who has had multiple back surgeries. I was thinking this would be an awesome way for her to get back into the nursing field, and could help me out in the meantime. (I'm an LPN.) For her, I'm assuming not a lot of bending/stooping/twisting would be needed for her. I've read some about CareStar. My understanding is it's basically starting your own business. I don't want to bite if it's more than I can chew. I have 2 small children, a whiney husband (don't we all?), and my mother to help out. I was hoping I could stay at home a bit more than my current three 12hour nightshifts a week I have now. I'm just looking for some "real" information I guess. Oh, and what happened to the site that had all the consumers in your area? Do they no longer list those?

We had a new resident admitted with dx of MRDD and jump from 3rd floor window ... what's the ICD9 code for that?

i had posted this elsewhere: I had a resident that had BenGay PRN. She was requesting it so I smeared it on her back and a shoulder. I ripped my gloves off to help her back into bed. She said something about one of her knees may need some also. So i just gooped some on my hand, and smeared it on her knee. I did the usual wash hands, leave room, finish treatments, wash hands between residents. Later on that night I took a break. My eye was a little irritated and dry, so while rubbing, God love contacts, my contact popped out. Went to the treatment cart, grabbed some NS, and started cleaning my contact in my palm. Rinsed contact off between fingers, crammed contact into eye. OMG! I had the most severe pain in my entire life, including child birth! Needless to say, Bengay is a lil' harder to get off hands than thought, and I did my last medpass minus one contact and a red/puffy eye. Genius ... pure genius ...:smackingf

Yeah, kinda like when the administrator thought it was real funny when i let one of the residents sing on the intercom one afternoon too. She was singing the eygyptian themed song about the people in france don't wear any underpants ... I didn't know he was still upstairs *shrug* some crap about it being degrading or some crap. The resident started it! hehe :rotfl: hehe I don't care, the residents are happy and stay amused LOL

or my favorite, I'm not really a nuse, or i've never done this before, but i did sleep in a holiday inn last night. I've got some residents the hold fingers out as soon as they see me coming, I just tell them i'm here to add another hole ... We also do a lot of stupid dances and such to get the occassional reluctant shower done.

I work psych ....i worked nightshift, we had telemarketers calling BAD at ALL hours it seemed. I answered to a woman with a bad accent wanting to speak to one of our residents, who was slightly demented. (alzheimer's, schizo, psychosis etc etc) I tried to explain to the woman that it was a LTC facility and he wasn't capable of talking etc etc. She argued with me, and he just so happened to wander by the nurses station, SO, i handed him the phone. He went through a barrage of questions and apparently was answering all of them for her. Needless to say, I got reprimanded the next week I came into work. Some crap about a satellite company being very PO'd about coming all the way to our facility to find out a resident wanted a premium package. :rotfl: BTW, we keep all the full moon dates circled on every calendar in the facility. We stay prepared!

Hrmmm ... I concieved my current 19 week pregnancy after a Lynyrd Skynyrd/3 Doors Down concert ... How's that for rhythm? :rotfl:

you know, I'm 25. I worked with a male 50's y.o. nurse. Not only did he "obey" and conform to authority, he thought all of the younger nurses below him should bow to him. Which considering he has more years experience than I have been alive, I was always open to suggestions and always was respectful. But you're right, I never bowed to him. There were more than one occassion where i'd find pages in the communication book i had written come up missing. And, our DON seems to think we all should be working more, spending time with family less, and I totally saw myself in this:

If it's like the bottles we have at work, the drug itself is clear. We had a hospice pt that had it ordered, and the hospice nurse actually put a drop of food coloring in it so we could count it better. It beat holding a flashlight on the other side of the bottle trying to count. But, you also have to remember that's going to add another drop to your count.

Reading the little bit that I have, they'll still need LPN's. They can't do meds through any sort of tube, g/ng/etc, no inhalers, they can't split pills, no injections, they can not start a new order, can not touch peds, and it's repeated over and over, they can not touch class 2. I didn't actually read it anywhere, but it looks like they can't do any sort of PRN's either. Makes sense though. They wouldn't be trained to make that call. I'm not feeling too threatened because I work in a psych facility. It would probably be a bigger hassle to have a med aide considering 90% of our residents get narcs at all med passes, and a lot of them recieve PRN injections on almost a daily basis. It goes on to talk about an LPN may only delegate to an aide if the RN supervising the LPN can delegate to that aide. It does state the nurse has to delegate giving PRN's ... so i wouldn't feel to threatened. They are very limited in what they can do.

You need to check your state laws. Here in Ohio, as an LPN, I'm not allowed to so much as think about touching a central line. I'm not sure about being IV certified, since I'm not. But, one thing I learned in school, don't do it if you're not comfortable doing it.

Exaclty, I'm pregnant, and i feel stuck is the only reason i'm not leaving. I don't have enough time to build vacation time to take maternity leave anywhere else. I am the main source of income to my household, or else I would leave. But seeing as how this is bound to happen where ever i go, not to mention the fact that this is a small community, and i have no idea what she has done to my reputation. It's just bad to be threatened by someone that no longer works there. She actually called the VP of the corporation, not the DON. THAT'S the scary part. And he of course, not knowing anything about anything, wanted it investigated. SO... i'm beginning to hate nursing. Which is sad. I enjoy my job, i just hate the crap that comes with it.

Something that just happened to me here recent ... I got in report a couple of residents had temps. The nightshift nurse had given them tylenol. I went to assess the two, and one had a temp of 101 and the other 103. Both residents had lungs full. One had the lovely green snot crusted to the inside of her nose and hanging to her lap. So, i got the chest xrays ordered called the doc and family etc etc. Got antibiotics ordered and started from e-box. Got the results back right before the same nurse came in to relieve me. Both had infiltrates. Imagine that. She actually looked at me and said, "Well, I gave them some Tylenol, and I didn't want to wake Dr. X up."

Myself, LMAO ... total dumb@$$ attack here. I worked nightshift. I had one resident that had some PRN Ben-Gay. Per her request, I smeared the nasty crap all over her back and shoulders. She was happy, I was happy. I ripped off my gloves, and she said something about one of her knees. So, I jus squirted some more out on my hand, rubbed it on her knee, helped her back into bed, washed my hands well, went on about my business. I finished up the rest of my treatments for the night, washing my hands between each patient, etc etc. I went on to my lunch break. During lunch, a couple of the aides and i were smoking. Smoke was irritating my eye, so i started rubbing my eye. God love contacts, my contact popped out. So i grabbed some saline, my contact, and headed to the bathroom, cleaned the contact off in the palm of my hand, placed it on my index finger and crammed it back into my eye. Never in my life have i ever had anything more painful in my entire life including childbirth. Needless to say, I did my morning med pass minus one contact and an extremely red eye with a little puffiness on it. Last time I EVER put Ben-Gay on an ungloved hand. :selfbonk: :lol_hitti :doh: :smackingf

Any little bit of advice helps. Thank you. I just wish/wondered if there are any laws to help prevent this. The facts to all these stories would make it huge post, so i left almost all out. But, all were bogus allegations. Abuse case was d/t my mother reprimanding the aide for coming in late, which she was notorius for doing. Among a few other things she had done, not done. Left people wet at shift change etc. The second story about the pills was because of similar reasons. The aides had been reprimanded, and he was related to me and my mother. The reasoning behind me, i'm sure it has to do with the fact that she lost her job and has burnt her bridges because of similar reasons in all the local facilities. I'm related to the other two nurses, and i still work there. she feels my mother is the reason she lost her job, and it wasn't. She's the reason she lost her job and no other reason. So, now she feels she needs to take it out on me i suppose. We live in a small community, people know people. Word travels. I know where and why she has been fired. She indeed has had several incidences of abuse cases on her, so i guess she feels she's been wronged. I must admit, our facility, before having the corporation re-vamp, was a facility where the aides ran the building. We as nurses, couldn't make any reprimands because we had no one to back us up when they occurred. The nurses that tried, are now gone. This nurse is now afraid to say anything to any of the aides becuse i fear for my license. I'm about to go to the local Wal-Mart and apply for a job.