aksti1018

Hello, I currently work in HH as a visiting field nurse with adults. At the beginning of the month my car got hit leaving a busy street where patient lived. The constant calls, emails, charting, etc plus having to still work on my off days (charting and calls for Monday on Sunday’s plus on call) is killing me! I reached my breaking point and applied for PDN. I already did a meet and greet and we get along great. I applied on Monday and here we are Thursday I’ve already done the meet and greet and am getting everything ready to start working. I never even had an interview so IDK if this is a red flag or what. Has anyone tried both of these fields? If so, which did you prefer? I see a lot of horror stories on this forum so it’s a little scary. Sure, I like this family but typically how long do you stay on one case and what if I don’t find another family I like? I don’t want to make a wrong career move here but the hours and more days off sound like a dream. Is this too good to be true? thanks in advance!

Sorry I’m just now seeing the whole second page of comments LOL disregard!

I’m doing home health right now and thinking of switching to dialysis. I have done time in ER, med/surg oncology, outpatient IR and now home health. I love HH but hate having to be on call and I’m always thinking about work- there’s no clocking out. I’ve been interested in dialysis for a while but scared to take that jump. Do you have to work 4 days in a row or is it every other day? I know different clinics have different schedules. Your posts have been very informative so thank you for sharing!

Do you work 4 days in a row?

Op curious what you ended up doing. I am in the same boat now doing home health. I love it but soo tired of ALWAYS working and I have such social anxiety I can’t stand when my phone rings! Lol

Hi guys, I just started in home health about 4 months ago. I absolutely LOVED it the first couple of months and couldn't imagine doing anything different, felt I hit the jackpot with an amazing company. The patients are amazing and actually appreciate every little thing you do for them which is the complete opposite of how you are treated in the hospital setting. So, our weekly productivity goal is 25 points. (Regular/wound care 1.25pt and SOC/ROC 2.25pts) Last week I saw 32.25 points and this week I already have 34.25 points assigned to me, which will change as I get more admissions. The constant emails/phone calls questioning every little thing are making my anxiety almost debilitating as I am trying my best to give the best care, which lets face it the patients are not getting at this load. If I send back a patient, for whatever reason, I get a phone call asking why I wasn't able to see the patient and I am getting to the point where I want to say "HELLOOOO look at my load, how on Earth can I see this many patients?" One day I saw 2 SOC, 2 Recerts, 2 discharges and 2 wound cares. I am kind of on my own out here and don't really have coworkers to ask if this is normal. I did my research before trying out home health so I knew the charting would be awful, but I was okay with it since I would be able to do it in the comfort of my home. I know a stress-free nursing job doesn't exist, but my God I wasn't expecting it to be this bad! We are required to be on call about 8 days a month and have to call patients on Sundays to schedule for Monday so I really only have 1 day where I don't have to think about work. I am really missing those 4 days off every week. Thanks for reading if you got through all that. Advice/words of encouragement appreciated!

The med/surg floor I work on has a lot lower acuity patients than the tele/step down units (those are like the above posts have described). Our patients are basically "obs" but may require longer stays because they need IV abx, blood transfusions, TPN, chemo (it's an oncology floor), or are pending placement to a SNF/rehab, etc. They aren't connected to any monitors (only continuous pulse ox if they have a PCA), we do v/s q6hrs and I haven't seen a code yet *knock on wood*, we do see a lot of DNR/hospice pt's that do pass away on the unit but it's expected. Med/surg is great if you don't like very stressful situations- although it does get stressful but I'm sure nothing compared to the step down units.