Got an offer for a hospice RN case manager role. I've been on tele for 6 years, three 12s, about $46/hr base plus night diff. The hospice job is salaried at $92k, Monday through Friday, mileage reimbursed, and you rotate weekend on-call about once a month.
The part I can't figure out is salaried. Everyone I've talked to says hospice case loads creep and you end up charting at 9pm with no overtime because you're exempt. The manager said the cap is 12-14 patients but she kind of laughed when she said it.
I really do want out of the hospital and I think I'd be good at the end of life stuff, I'm the one who always ends up with the comfort care patients anyway. I just don't want to trade one kind of drowning for another and take a pay cut to do it.
Hospice nurses, what's your real case load and how many hours are you actually working a week? Is salaried a trap or am I overthinking it?
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Post replyRun the hourly math before you sign. $92k at 40 hours is about $44/hr, but at 50 hours it's closer to $35, and you're already near $86k base on tele before diff. Ask if you can shadow one of their case managers for a full day, including the documentation part at the end.
Do they pay anything extra for on-call, either a flat rate or per visit? A lot of salaried roles expect you to cover the whole weekend for nothing and that changes the math a lot.
Not every agency is like that. Mine is a smaller nonprofit and the caps actually hold, I average 11-12 patients and maybe 42-45 hours a week. Ask them straight up what their RN turnover was last year and how many open CM positions they have right now. If they dodge it, that tells you plenty.
Hospice CM for 3 years now. They told me 12 when I started and I've been sitting at 16-17 for over a year because two nurses quit and they never backfilled. Most weeks I'm around 50 hours once you count charting at the kitchen table. I still wouldn't go back to the floor, but go in with your eyes open.
She laughed when she said the cap. That's your answer right there.