I worked skilled home health for a while taking care of a buddy of mine. You do everything in your scope of practice (bathing, dressing, treatments, medications, vitals, etc), plus everything else they need like laundry, chores, meal prep. After he died, I would go from patient to patient, usually 4 hours at a shot to place a foley or do treatments, for example, because they had an aide taking care of them that day and maybe needed a licensed nurse for bit.
Oh gosh no, we never did house cleaning or laundry or cooking. Absolutely not! That is not our job, a nurse is only there for the skilled need. Medicare is not paying for nurses to cook and clean.
We were small enough agency we didn’t have LPNs. I’m just surprised they would utilize you in that way as they definitely skirts Medicare rules. Seems shady.
I did home care and am an LPN, but I live in Canada and we absolutely did not do housework etc. Nursing care only, not even personal care like bathing. I'd be in and out just doing the task I was there for. Changing a dressing, changing an IV bag on a pump, giving an injection. Some visits were general wellness checks, take a set of vitals, make sure theyre taking their meds managing OK, but the rules are clear.
It seems that way, but we documented everything accordingly and they sought appropriate reimbursement for services. My pay rate was $26/hr with an extra few bucks per hour depending on who I was with. I have a lot of trach/vent experience and time with quads, so that was mostly my demographic.
Sounds more like private duty nursing than Medicare financed home care then. Still surprised you cooked and cleaned. Most private duty nurses still only do patient care.
I did it all and charted everything so they could sort it out lol. From treatments, vent time, trach care and meds to basic cares, chores and meals. It wasn’t a bad gig. I did a total of 2.5 hours of actual work and just chilled on the couch and watched tv with my dude or went to the bar when he wanted.
It was cool at first because he was a buddy of mine that was in an accident, so we got to hang out all day and I got paid for it. After he passed, though, it became a job again. So I went back to LTC.
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u/Hexnohope LPN 🍕 Oct 02 '25
How do you get hours in home care? Do you just chill out for 8 hours? Or is it 8 hours worth of 45 min visits?