Staffing? How many residents are you responsible for?

bluejenna46 · Nov 2, 2011

I work in a county run ECF. We have 76 beds and 2 MDS Coordinators. We probably average 10-15 MCR pts. I don't know how you could do a good job with that many residents.

nurse1109 · Nov 2, 2011

Thank you for the advice. This was my gut feeling. I really want an MDS job, I have a type A personality and I think it is the challenge I am looking for. This just may not be the best place to start out.

brashy · Nov 3, 2011

That's way too much. Especially starting out. I run about 20 medicare and handle 30 LTC, do all care plans and restorative. I've been doing it for about 3 years. Given the new 3.0 changes and COT's, you might be setting yourself up to fail. Keep looking, a better fit will come along.

crazyforthis · Nov 9, 2011

I just interviewed for an MDS Coordinator position and need some advice. I would be the only nurse in the facility completing the MDS for 80 residents (there are 100 beds total). Right now 60 are Medicaid and 20 are Medicare approx. In addition to this I would be doing all the Careplans and in charge of the Restorative program. This is a salaried position. Is this too much for one person to handle? I am new to MDS. I work in a hospital now but have worked for 2 ECFs and both places had more than one person doing the MDS. For those of you who are MDS Coordinators, how many residents are you responsible for?

I am the only MDS person in a SNF which averages about 40 patients. We have a case mix of about 18-20 Medicare and the rest are either Medicaid or other or non pay. We are Medicare ONLY certified. Our RN staff does the care planning in another electronic program we have for charting and I site where to find the info etc when I do the CAA/CP in MDS. I run the care plan meertings, send a weekly update to each department reminding them which patients need to be updated for which assessment. We do not have restorative nursing at this time. I also do weekley formal audits on our nursing documentation. I participate in 3 staff meetings a month to discuss MDS with the staff, I also do one on one traings with each staff member that has any hands on patient care about MDS assessments, how to correctly assess ADL's etc. These 1:1's take form 30-45 min each. I am also getting ready for our February competancy fair in which MDS will have a big part. I have an open door in case anyone has questions. I track each patient for admit- when, why, where, when assessments are do, dc when and to where and run once a month stats on all of that for the QA dept in addition to our monthly SNF planning meeting. I am way behind on filing, and on keeping some of the spreadsheets updated but do get to take home work on the weekend that I get paid for. Fortunately I am hourly and generally put in about 50 hours a week. Tons of meetings, oh also assist with interviewing potential new staff. If I were able physically to work about 65 hours a week each week then I would probably be on top of it all, but that is just a guess...

9 months ago I was brand new to MDS and accepted the job of RN MDS Coordinator. It is a ton of work, I do mean a ton. MDS is complex and seems to get more so all the time. If you have not accepted this MDS position I would make sure you are okay with the salary as you are going to be putting in a lot of hours!

imkaren2 · Nov 10, 2011

I was managing 20-28 medicare and 6-10 managed care pts. and that was way to overwhelming and attending multiple meetings nearly daily. Our SNF is 154 pts and the rest are LTC, I have 1 other MDS person who did the rest of it. About 2 months ago the company finally realized that we were only getting farther and farther behind with her working the floor every week and on weekends. We were a month behind with every pts MDS in the building before they would look at us and make changes. Not a single pts care plan was current. Not a discharge assessment was done in 2 months. We have been banned from all meetings since then, she took over managed care and I added LTC only on the unit I have my office on and she supports my by helping me completing as many MDSs as she can while keeping up with her work. So far this new plan has worked out very well. I would advise you not to take on such a huge committment, theres too much to learn and do right now, too big of a job for one person especially when you don't know the job already. Your MDS position will come along, this isn't it. Good luck!