looking for home-based triage position

intellicareRN · Jan 31, 2005

The only thing I can say with your telephone conversation with the recruiter is maybe have your resume in front of you. Just be able to tell what kind of computer skills you have and be personable on the phone and you will do great!! :)

hockeymom · Mar 30, 2005

They do let nurses work different amount of hours for their shifts. They do offer benefits (I'm single, so I have to have a job with benefits). I believe they are prorated for part timers. They also use perdiems.
You must have either DSL or cable for a fast internet connection. I'm thinking of relocating and bringing my job with me, but had to rule out one small town, as they only had dial up.
They have a large list of clients/contracts ( I forget how many but I think it's more than 100?), and yes, we do have to know for each client whether we page the doctors or not, make appointments etc. When you pull a member from each database to your screeen, a list of "rules" for that specific client is shown. These "rules" will tell you if you need to page an oncall, whether they will refill prescriptions after hours, whether you can book appointments, the hours that office is open, whether the office has weekend hours, and sometimes we even have driving directions listed to tell patients how to get to the office. We have way too many clients to be expected to remember the rules for each on our own. But you know how it is, some clients have more members, and one becomes familiar with that client's rules quicker.
I've been working at home for almost 1 year now. I love it.

Hi. I just joined this forum today and I have followed your posts regarding home-based phone triage. I live in Southeast Michigan and I am looking for an additional job opportunity that will fit into my busy schedule of 3 boys who play hockey. Currently, I do contract work for insurance agents, providing the physical exams for their applicants. It's very flexible, but inconsistent work. My work background is varied, and I have no phone triage experience, but I did work in an Urgent Care/Emergency Room for 3 years and triage of patients was one of my job responsibilities. I have my BSN and I am a quick typist. How would my previous experience fare for employment in the home-based phone triage business? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

SWRN84 · Apr 26, 2005

I work for Intellicare, but in the disease management division. I understand it's quite different from triage, but may an option. I've had a long history in home care and this position fit very well for my experience. I am working in a program that deals with CHF and DM pt's. It's home-based, still have to have the DSL or cable hook up, and the hours are more of a day/evening type. So disease management could be an option, too.

Hi. I just joined this forum today and I have followed your posts regarding home-based phone triage. I live in Southeast Michigan and I am looking for an additional job opportunity that will fit into my busy schedule of 3 boys who play hockey. Currently, I do contract work for insurance agents, providing the physical exams for their applicants. It's very flexible, but inconsistent work. My work background is varied, and I have no phone triage experience, but I did work in an Urgent Care/Emergency Room for 3 years and triage of patients was one of my job responsibilities. I have my BSN and I am a quick typist. How would my previous experience fare for employment in the home-based phone triage business? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

hockeymom · Apr 26, 2005

I work for Intellicare, but in the disease management division. I understand it's quite different from triage, but may an option. I've had a long history in home care and this position fit very well for my experience. I am working in a program that deals with CHF and DM pt's. It's home-based, still have to have the DSL or cable hook up, and the hours are more of a day/evening type. So disease management could be an option, too.

Thanks for the response. How did you get into disease management and how long have you worked there? Does it matter where the employee lives when working in disease management? Is this a type of case management? Sorry for all the questions, but I am intrigued by the position. Thanks.

SWRN84 · Apr 26, 2005

I am a new employee for the company. I'm going into my second month. I found the job really by accident...stumbled across an internet ad in November. I spoke with the recruiter at that time for a triage position but they weren't hiring. They waited until the spring to do another hiring for disease management and it really seems to fit my experience. I've been working in home care for the last 18 years, so the experience I had helped. No, it doesn't seem to matter where you live. As long as you have high speed internet, either cable or DSL....that's a requirement. And you have to be able to train in one of the call centers for 2 weeks full time. I trained in the St. Louis office and we had a nurse from West Virginia in our group. There are several call centers located across the US.....St.Louis, Dallas (I think), Maryland, Maine, and Nebraska....I think there are a couple more but I don't know that for sure. I have never worked case management, but I believe this differs in that we monitor their CHF/DM electronically/telephonically, and relay other major concerns, ie financial, social, barriers to care, to their case managers.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the response. How did you get into disease management and how long have you worked there? Does it matter where the employee lives when working in disease management? Is this a type of case management? Sorry for all the questions, but I am intrigued by the position. Thanks.

code99 · May 1, 2005

regarding the clients demographics..from experience most is preloaded but you must be very careful due to confidentiality issues. when i worked nurse line it was stressed that we were not to ask the caller to varify information that was on the screen but to ask the demographics from the caller. i liked the job but had some problems with unfair treatment with scheduling. i worked with one nurse that had been there 7 yrs. and was still slow and not confident with her recommendations. i worked with one that was slow on the key board and often put in her home remedies or herbal etc. which were not approved in the guidelines, so they both were slow and i was able to get my calls done in less than 8 minutes average within a couple of months and then down to 5 mins and less and felt confident with my decisions regarding recommendations. not that i am so great but telephone triage nursing was perfect for me. i would love to have my old job back but i wasn't willing to carry the load for my coworkers at the expense of not getting a better schedule that i felt i deserved based on my performance. i had to leave home at 4:30 am and drive 50 minutes that got old after 18months. everyone was given an opportunity to have their schedule changed with a chance of getting one of your preferred choices. of course i didn't get one of mine because i needed to "carry" the other nurses. most of the people were "wonderful" and of course their was always the occasional "no heart terminator sup's) any how a triage nurse needs to be able to adapt to changes and to deal with disaster issues, emergencies, abuse, think fast, stay focussed,ask the right questions and stick to the guidelines. i spent all my free time "learning". would love to have a job from home with one of the triage nurse lines. if anyone knows of one let me know. i have not worked for several months now just looking for something i want to do. certainly not long term, home health or hospital.

i trained in the st louis office for about 3 months. others completed the training process quicker, some longer. your average length of talk time on a call must be ~10 minutes before you can start working from home. i came from a previous job setting where length of calls was not really monitored, so it was a little hard for me to break old habits.
demographics are usually already in the system, we just verify them. but if we can't find a member in the database, then we have to gather the info and load them into the system.
intellicare has their own system/software. it's pretty easy to use.
keep watching for postions. they just hired a few nurses for nights in the last month.

mtymom · May 19, 2005

Hello, I have a question. What is home based triage and how does it work. I would love to have a job I can do at home that has to do with nursing. I know this doesn't apply to the original post but I would like to know.

Thanks,

mtymom

P.S. Can LPN's do it too or is it just RN's?

wincha · Jan 6, 2006

i do see an ad for disease management at intellicare. I already have 9 years of telephone triage experience and our company uses their software. i am however looking for days and do not really want to work from home. anyone tell me how much earned time you get in a year and how soon you can use it. specifics about holiday pay. disease management is it straight days? i have also had an talked to another company but have yet to get into the actual company as they interview by phone and was offered a salary even. however due to illness of a hiring person it has been put off. in the meantime I am getting offers in the hospital network i work for but the jobs are not my first choice. my call times are already 8 minutes. i did get tired of picking up the slack for the slow workers but this was triage and it was evenings/ weekends ect.... i have been doing telephone disease managment for a small caseload for less than a year and have kept this part of my job and have stepped away from the triage part in the office because i am needed at home in the evenings and weekends. it has got to the point i can't work the off shifts due to my children and my youngest child is finally in school all day so i can work days. anyone with any suggestions about benefits or anything i would appreciate it. i also am looking to get into a company that i can move up the ladder as i have not all this time due to my children. i have over 20 years of experience also

Guardian Angels · Mar 14, 2006

McKesson is also has home based Telenurse positions - It is a fortune 16 company and most hirings are completed by The Judge Group

webbiedebbie · Mar 14, 2006

Guardian Angels...do you work for McKesson? Where are they located and what is a Judge group? I applied with McK over a year ago and never heard from them.

Also, how do you keep patients focused...what do you say?....to keep your call time down to 10 min or less?

Trishthedish · Apr 30, 2006

My name is Trish, and this is my first post.

I used to work for Tokos, which became Matria. It was specifically for OB pts. Most of them did home uterine monitoring and we (at a call center) read their strips and triaged as appropriate. We had a case load of 50-60 pts, and spoke to the same patients for weeks or sometimes months. I LOVED this job (especially since I got to develop a relationship with the patients)! Unfortunately, at least at that time (mid 90s, you had to work in a call center, which got to be a pain, since it was 90 minutes each way from home.)

Anyone out there work for Matria, or a similar company?

Thanks,

Trish

Ayonti · Aug 15, 2006

Well, I took a paycut to work from home. I think the pay would depend on where you are located in the country and on one's experience.
At my last job I made 50,000 a year, and that was with some overtime. My current job is less.
I would quess in most areas it's less than hospital based nurses, maybe on par with clinic nurses?

I only have 3 months (yes, 3 months) of med surg experience and find that I really do not like working in the hospitals. How can I get into the home base triage business. Are there any training or certificate programs that can get me in the door. Thanks for any help you can offer.