RN On call for Home Care/Hospice nursed forced to work Facility by employer

[bdubay01]

Hi there. I'm just wondering what I might be able to do about this beyond getting another job (which I'm working on). I was hired by a Home Care and Hospice agency as a salaried full time night on call RN. My duties include after hours triage, responding to patient homes, calling doctors, opening patients to care, picking up meds, completing death visits, basically whatever else comes up in my shift. Last Friday the on call manager called me and informed me that with 20 minutes notice, I would be required to cover a shift at the inpatient hospice facility owned by the company (somewhere I never agreed to or was trained to work) as a CENA because the shift was not covered. This is typically the supervisors responsibility, but the on call supervisors were "not hospice trained", so they would not go cover the home. There is nothing in my job description or offer letter about being forced to work in a facility as part of my duties. I work 5pm to 8am, 105 hours every two weeks. My employer expected me to pull a 12 hour facility shift with in that time. I think they were dead wrong and I'm looking for another job, but I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts or information on recourse I may have for this issue.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

Recourse? Probably none I would wager. It is likely your job duty description includes verbiage along the lines of "And other duties as assigned". You could have a very frank discussion with your supervisor (or their supervisor I guess) to find out when/how this became practice. It is possible your supervisor was supposed to cover this shift and just couldn't or didn't want to and thus wiped that booger off on you, but you do have to project forward to see what the likely outcome is going to be if you make a stink and whether that outcome is worth it.