It depends on the type of visit.  Almost all OASIS visits counted at least as 1.5 visits with our agency.  An admission, recertification was 2; a post hosp was 1.5  <I hated these, Id rather do an admission much more than post hosp visit;   the patients almost always forgot their discharge paperwork and they cant remember why they were in the hospital in the first place much less what was wrong with them when they were there.  When heading out for an admission you know its gonna suck when the patient has no idea where they live; whats would be worse was when he/she does not know which part of the county there are in.  I got my first car with a gps 2 yrs ago.  We have 2 'towns'.........I use the word 'town' probably incorrectly.  According to my car gps, the magellen my husband last year because I complained about my car gps couldnt find "Shannon, Georgia", I got a verizon smart phone, it had supposedly a satellite gps that could track from outer space, and it couldnt find Shannon either.   I asked my boss if we could refuse referrals if the patients addressed directions couldnt be fround on a smart phone gps.  I was told no.   When you ask how many patients, also take into consideration the miles in between.  I had days when I drove in excess of 250 miles from the home of patient #1 to patient #6.   That day I saw 7 .5 human patients.   4 admissions, 1 post hospital, and 1 recertification.  I also drove through 9 counties.  Now NW Georgia is a wonderful place to work as a home health nurse.........especially in the spring and fall.  Im on leave from work right now and look forward to getting back to it.  Also as a casemanager, all CNA's have to have supervisory visits by an RN every 14 days............as do the LPN.  The case manager has to keep track of these visits because if a supervisory visit is missed medicare will dump all the funding for the CNA's and LPN's for that certification period......which is 90 days.   If a certification visit is missed ALL visits will be dumped by medicare for each discipline including PT and OT.  If that happens you have to do the entire admission all over AFTER discharging them.  What sucks is when your filling in for a sick coworker and find out from the emergent phone call by the office that yesterday the patients cert period was up.  You have no info on that patient and here you go having to do a discharge then admit them.  Its embarassing when you have to have them sign all the papers again for this because their casemanager wasnt there.   Your dying to tell them "she called in sick and your cert period was up yesterday".......but if you rat out your coworker  and say "she made a booboo"  you'll sound like a tattletail and thats unprofessional.  On any normal day I did an equivalent of 7 or 8, and hopefully the directions were decent.   One thing, if your asthmatic make sure you carry an inhaler with you all the time.  I had a patient in a rural part of the county who had a doggie door.................but the had goats,  not dogs, who ran inside the house.

our cert periods are also 60 days, my mistake.  We also required productivity and if business was slow, you will be doing chart reviews as well.  Do you guys in Mass have house goats?  Ha..............There are house goats in my area so im sure your jealous!

maryjanern says ...

Not so many house goats,but we have our share of other animals.  Check out my website. I am a startup private visiting nurse. I love it  .Do you work for a large company? MJ     www.housecallsnursing.com

Your website looks great, but it said its still under construction.  Im with a huge agency however Im on leave from work due to illness, we have offices all over the country, mostly in the south though.  My advice to anybody in home health:  do your paperwork in the home......dont let it pile up or you'll chart til the wee hours of the morning. 

It depends on a lot of factors, such as type of patients, time devoted to each patient, whether it is a full care nursing or just a casual round. But around 8-10 can be easily managed on a per day basis.

www.reliablecommunitycare.net/visiting-nurses-new-york.asp

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