I work in home healthcare.
Currently, I have three different clients that I work with.
When I go to their homes, the client uses what is called Respite hours to cover the hours that I'm there.
The clients have evaluations done every year, I believe, to determine how many respite hours they're going to have.
When I started working with my Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday client, they had A LOT of hours to use up by the end of August.
Generally speaking, I'm with her those three days a week from about 8:30/9:00am - 4:00pm.
This week, I went "away" with them overnight. I got to the cabin at 9:45am and I left at 5:03pm the next day. I was told by my boss that I could get paid for two 16 hour periods in a 48 hour period. Some rule with the State prevents me from getting paid for the whole time I'm there. She said basically I'm not getting paid to sleep. Whatever.
On my way home on Wednesday, I talked to my boss and I told her when I left so that they could manually put my hours into the system since I didn't call the number I usually call to clock in. Our final conversation determined that I'd get paid from 9:45am till midnight and then from 3:00am till 5:03pm when we left. So basically I'd just not get paid for three hours. I could deal with that.
Today, I get a call from the mom of the client telling me we have a problem. That she doesn't have enough hours to cover me, the other caregiver and her oldest daughter that is also a caregiver for the month. She said that the client went to bed at 8:30pm on Tuesday and that I wasn't responsible for her during the night. Ok, whatever. In my opinion, I was STILL THERE even if I didn't sleep with her and take care of her. So now, I'm going to get paid 10.25 hours for one day and 9 hours for the other.
I should also mention that through this company I'm working for, they don't reimburse me for gas and I drive two of my clients around a lot {and it was about an hour each way to go to this cabin on a lake, can't remember how many miles}. The mom of my Friday client gives me gas money although I guess the clients aren't allowed to reimburse for gas so this mom calls it "fun money". I don't understand it but again, something having to do with the State and DSHS.
I'm just really frustrated. I already get paid next to nothing for taking care of people that aren't able to care for themselves and now I'm not going to get paid for all the hours I was there because the client 1) doesn't have enough hours to cover me and 2) doesn't think I should get paid for the hours I wasn't by the clients side.
Another thing that I'm frustrated about is that with this company, I was told that I'd be able to get health insurance for myself after I'd worked 84 hours and I'd be able to keep it as long as I continued working 84 hours a month. I've been with this company since March and I've definitely worked 84 hours and I continue to work MORE than 84 hours a month, yet I still don't have health insurance because they've been switching companies!!
I need a new job. One that pays more. One that gives me health insurance for both Kyle and me. And one that doesn't require me to drive clients around without getting reimbursed for the gas I'm using!
