wheatfree

My company requires that I wear a mask and face shield (or goggles) and gloves to every visit. The patient needs to wear a mask during the visit, and so do any caregivers who are taking part in the visit and will be present in the room. If the patient and/or caregiver is unable or unwilling to wear a mask, I have to wear an n95 mask rather than a regular surgical mask. We have been provided with all needed PPE. If the patient is positive or suspected to have covid-19, I am required to wear full isolation gear including booties, gown, gloves, n95 mask, face shield, and hat. Did that twice in the last 2 days. I got my Moderna covid-19 vaccine Tuesday. My boss made phone calls and talked to everyone she could until she got the name of someone who made that happen. All of this had been a giant pain in the rear, but I haven't felt unsafe at work.

I've never worked psych as home health, but I did in the hospital, and we had to have a consent form for each psychotropic we gave there.

We've been doing this for a full year. The only exceptions were for weekend SOCs. Now, we're being told that it has to be done on the weekends too. Sometimes you have to know your limits, and if you can't get it done in one day, maybe you need to talk about your daily load. You can't do 10-12 hour days (visits, documentation, and travel time) every day of the week.

1. Yes, the paperwork sucks, and someone still needs to define reasonable for me in that sentence because I've been told the same. So about a year into this job, I no longer need to read the Oasis questions and think about the answers. That makes it faster. I get paid 2.5 points (hours) for each start of care I do. My hourly rate is nice. They're paying me a lot more than I made in the hospital, and I supposedly don't work full time. (I don't work Wednesdays. However, I get enough work that I'm usually at 30 points per week anyway.) 2. I have HIPAA issues with the idea of keeping a planner. 3. I can't help you with scheduling. Scheduling patients for home health is like herding cats. Just when you think you have your schedule set, someone will cancel or the office will try to add another visit or 2 to your day. On top of that, half of my patients don't answer phones/texts. 4. My company supplied all of my equipment. The only thing I use of my own is my stethoscope. 5. Work-life balance is a joke. Sorry. Like all jobs, this one has its good parts and bad parts. Supposedly, 6 points is a full day. Yesterday, I had 12.85 points assigned to my tablet. No, I didn't see all that. My resumption of care was back in the hospital. My start of care was moved to tomorrow because he had a wound care clinic appointment that day. My discharge flaked out on me and I ended up doing a non-visit discharge because she won't let us come back to do it in person. The rest were all regular visits, and I saw those. *shrug* It all works out in the end, I guess.

Yes. We use chlorhexadine swabs to clean our picc line sites. I use the sterile gauze in the pack to move the line out of the way to clean the site. Then I clean the line, let everything dry, apply skin prep, biopatch, securement device, and cover with opsite dressing. I'm going to clean anything that goes underneath that dressing and didn't come out of my sterile dressing kit.