Scheduler

The agency I am working for has a scheduler who works in the office. She is responsible for scheduling visits to keep everyone on quota for visits. She spends her day in the office with all the cliché group. I get so frustrated that I want to scream! It seems she has no common sense when she schedules our visits. My visits are an average of 25 to 45 miles apart which makes for a very long day. Last week, I drove 53 miles to do a routine visit. I talked with another nurse and found that she had driven to the same far away location on the very same day. This is stupid and definitely a poor use of resources. There are many, many issues that boil down to problems with the scheduler. She does a good job to make sure productivity points are met and so therefore is admired by the office staff. Issues with scheduling are not realized by our supervisory staff but they ALWAYS defend the scheduler and not really seem to care that we spend the majority of our day driving and end up being out in the field for 10-11 hours and then go home and finish the paperwork. Just recently called a patient I was going to admit and told them there was no problem with me being there by 9:00am the next day. The next day was the day for Case Conference which begins promptly at 9:00am. Our Branch Manager is very strict about attendance at Case Conference. So, the night before, I emailed the Branch Manager to let her know I would not be able to be at Case Conference that morning because the scheduler "promised" the patient that I would be there no later than 9:00am. I received an e-mail being scolded for not being at Case Conference. I can only be at one place at a time!! I felt being on time for the patient more of a priority. I attached the email I had received from the scheduler telling me that I MUST be at the home by 9:00am but apparently the Branch Manager did not read the entire email and just went off on that I would not be able to attend Case Conference. This is crazy and I just do not feel it was fair of me to get this scolding. It should have been addressed to the scheduler for making the promise to the patient as she KNOWS Case Conference is on Thursday mornings. She just once again did use common sense and of course was protected by the office staff. So far, I have not responded to the email and deleted it because it really ticked me off and pretty much ruined the rest of my day. I also have not talked with the scheduler because I was concerned I would raise my voice and be accused of "hassling" the office staff who seem to never do anything wrong. What would you all have done?