Refusing a case in home care

MiAmorPickles · Aug 3, 2019

I’ve gotten out of pediatric private duty work since I posted on here. Had some health iissues come up and couldn’t continue working full time so took 3 months off and then went part-time filling in for call-ins or no-shows. Then, two incidents occurred. 1) Drove to a job to help them out with a patient in another county 2 hours away and they wouldn’t pay the $2 extra per hour for the vent patient or pay gas expenses. I had already worked 40 hours that week and they said since I was in overtime they wouldn’t pay any extras. Even though they were the ones who asked me to do them a favor and go out there. 2) I got stuck in rush-hour traffic for two hours going to a job that they forgot to tell me was canceled (total drive time = 3 hrs) and after going back-and-forth with them about it they finally paid a whopping $10 for my trouble TWO MONTHS LATER instead of standard industry courtesy pay. If they were going to jack me around like that and only pay me 10 bucks, I didn’t want to work for them anymore. Disrespectful. I quit.

I wound up getting a better job with decent benefits and the most money per hour I’ve ever been paid so they actually did me a favor. I don’t ever want to feel undervalued like that again.

caliotter3 · Sep 1, 2019

Regarding MiAmor’s post, for the future, look up with your state Labor Board “reporting time pay” or “show up pay”. Many states require that one be paid an amount substantially more than $10 for reporting to work expecting to work an assigned shift, but instead getting sent home or sent home early. Be careful though, as many employers look at you as if you are crazy when you tell them you are requesting reporting time pay. In my state you get as much as four hours pay when you get sent home instead of working an assigned eight hour shift. Nothing to sneeze at for your time and trouble.

DesertwindRN, ADN, RN · Sep 9, 2019

I suggest you find another company and perhaps a third. This gives you more choices. Maxim, in my experience, behaves just as you described. The whole purpose of the “meet and greet” is for both you and the client and in the case of peds pts, the parents too, to feel comfortable with you and you have just as much say as to which clients you choose. Maxim has very rude, totally unprofessional “men” in that staffing position who seem to believe we are part of a slave market. I had a fellow get so mad at me for not taking a Friday/Saturday case, evening hours, (which I don’t work), two large total care fellows, that he would not offer me any other clients and never returned my calls. I asked to be assigned another staffer (I think they consider that to be a criminal act, requesting a different staffer.) Later my phone was filled with messages from Maxim trying to get me to work for them, stating they had several pediatric high tech clients for me and could keep me busy. I never return their calls. There are great private duty companies who are wonderful to work with. Maxim is the only one that I have had such an experience with. Several times after the “meet and greet” I declined the case. No one ever, except for Maxim, showed annoyance with my decision. I used to work pediatric private care and the NICU. It was a nice brake from all the stress of the hospital. I loved working in NICU. I work pediatric and adult infusion now and love it and pick my clients. We have a lot of choices as nurses.

SirJohnny · Oct 18, 2019

Screw the agency manager. He is looking out for his own interests (e.g., gets paid commission for the sale). Remember, this is a business, not some feel good charity work.

By feeling sad or getting angry, the manager was playing to your feelings as a young, caring female.

Gotta grow some callouses and let it roll off. There are other cases out there. They know that.

Agency is greedy, they will find you more cases. It's a win some, lose some game for the agency. They know that.

LizluvsRUSH · Oct 3, 2020

On 6/12/2016 at 10:13 PM, MunoRN said:

You have the right to refuse, and your employer has the right to terminate your employment for refusal of delegated job duties.

Not! I currently work for 3 PDN companies and have been since 2012. I've probably refused 15 cases in that time. It's absolutely acceptable in PDN. Dude was just trying to intimidate you since you're new. It's been tried on me and in the beginning it felt terrible. But now after years of experience, I immediately check that if a new scheduler tries that mess. I've even been interrogated by the CM (clinical manager) as to why I chose not to take a case. I just stood my ground and said it's not for me. Usually I explain my reasons though. That was just a personal thing. The whole concept of PDN and the meet and greet is that you're BOTH happy with the assignment. If you have it in you, I'd report that scheduler. That's unacceptable. Every company is begging for nurses to be able to fill shifts, getting complaints from families about unfilled shifts. They need you. If you realize this fron the beginning, you'll understand your leveraging power. And they WILL pay you extra to take certain shifts. They just don't want that to become common knowledge so they'll tell you to not discuss your payrate with fellow nurses.

I could go on... but just know, you are extremely valuable to the company. DON'T let a putz scheduler pressure you bc he's stressed that he's responsible to fill an open shift! Be flexible, take shifts and help out with coverage when you can, but saying no to a case is your right in PDN. Once I even told a scheduler, "Hey, there's gotta be some benefits (being able to refuse a shift) since the pay is such crap". She laughed and agreed.