Pros
The training was very comprehensive and thorough. Our patient care manager was kind and resourceful. The pay was above the average in the area
Cons
I’ve been in healthcare over a decade, and this was the worst employment experience I have had. I truly thought it was me, and that maybe home health wasn’t a good fit for me. But when I left for another agency that operates and treats their employees COMPLETELY differently, I realized it wasn’t me - it was Accentcare. First, their expectations of their field nurses were completely unreasonable. We had no say in the patients we picked up, or their location. I live in a big metro area, and was easily clocking 200 miles a day bouncing back and forth all over the city and surrounding suburbs. I would be scheduled to see 7-10 patients a day, and get lectured in my monthly review of my “metrics” for not spending all day seeing patients, then coming home and spending all night charting. Submitting a chart same day was not always possible if I wanted to have any type of life, but they made sure to tell me if I couldn’t get it done, that it was ME that was the problem. They blatantly lied about on call expectations - we were required to be on call about once a month, which was fine! But on call to me means responding to emergent or urgent patient needs outside of business hours - not spending my weekend admitting patients and doing routine visits that got missed for whatever during the day week. We routinely would have full schedules on our on-call weekends, and then be expected to turn around and go right back to work Monday morning. I was exhausted. The work-life balance was nonexistent. Which was ironic, because at almost every meeting we had, management would try to tell us the opposite: “turn those tablets off at 5pm! This isn’t a 24/7 job!” But the next days schedule wasn’t “finalized” until 5pm the night before, meaning I spent my evenings when I was supposed to be off trying to field phone calls to schedule with patients for the next day. Lastly, staffing was a nightmare. My office had a census of between 120-140 patients. When I left, there were 2 RNs and 1 LPN expected to cover that. And did the LICENSED RNs in management come out of their cushy offices to help while we were drowning? Absolutely not. We got placated with “we appreciate you!” and “we can do this!” Emails.
