Pros
You get 6 paid holidays, no weekends. Flexible schedule. Some very supportive RDs. Benefits are ok. They do have a triage RN team to take your calls
Cons
Working with the individuals is great- but heavy workload. You'll be responsible for about 35-40 individuals. However, you're also responsible for reminding staff when their trainings are due- which is ridiculous- people are often pointing at the nurses for not keeping up with their staffs training when it's really should be the managers responsibilities to remind their staff that their trainings are due. Even with the trainings, staff aren't going to do what you're asking them to do- but you do get some good staff who really care about the individuals- the rest just come and go. There's also a high turnover rate- the staff you had just trained on Monday would quit on Wednesday- this happens ALL THE TIMES!! So you'll have to train new staff and then the cycle begins. A lot of challenges working with these individuals- most of them are on Medicaid- this does not help when they need to be seen by a specialist. And when they are being seen at the clinic- there's always a long wait list . And don't forget you'll be working with some guardians whom can be soooo difficult to work with- nothing gets done because the guardians don't want to the individuals to get hurt- examples: Pap smear or dental cleaning and there you go- more documentation to do- then you'll have to inform the state, case manager etc... again... a lot of layer to go through for a simple refusal of Pap smear. You can be good at telling manager to schedule things but don't expect things to be done on time. When the managers aren't doing their job- agencies will try their best to blame the nurses and most of the time the company will just "pull you out" to keep their customers happy instead of standing up for you. Comparing to my RN friends, I made the least and they were shocked of how low my salary was. Also you can never do enough documentation- you would have to write the same thing in 5 different places- most of my times were spent on documenting- not a lot of nursing skills were used to be honest.
