We have been working at a small, rural hospital for about 6 months now. I am the first to admit that I was not looking forward to it, especially considering I am a part time utilization review nurse. I had no idea what the job entailed, and I was a nervous wreck when I first arrived to work.
Part time utilization review nurses are a new, little-known specialty that is growing rapidly. They do what used to be done for doctors by billing for more time in a day. Part time utilization review nurses are essentially billing doctors for what they used to call “time off.” They are billing for time off that they used to have to perform “routine office tasks.
Part time utilization review nurses are still relatively new, but their growth is exciting. Part time utilization review nurses are one of the fastest-growing specialties in the healthcare industry. It’s been growing so quickly that a few employers have formed to train them. I think it’s because they are so valuable, because they are so new, and because there is so little research on the subject.
The reason they are so fast growing is because the job is relatively easy to bill for. They don’t have any clinical experience. So when they ask for more time, the employers are very accommodating because they think they need more time to get their patients through the day. The problem is, when you are a part time utilization review nurse, you are not performing routine office tasks. You are more of an in-home health aide.
A part time utilization review nurse is a person who is not allowed to do routine office tasks (such as medical billings or preparing prescriptions) but is allowed to do other tasks. In-home health aides are trained to deliver home-based services to patients who do not have medical insurance. The patient pays the in-home health aide a fee and the home health aide gets the care. Many in-home health aides are employed full time.
While part-time utilization review nurses have been around for a while, they have gained popularity in the last few years in the light of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that all employers provide coverage to employees on a sliding scale. The healthcare law required employers to provide in-home health aides with up to four hours of paid time off for each 30 hours worked.
Part-time utilization reviews have been around for quite some time, but for people who are employed full time they are almost always considered to be a lower category of hours than full-time hours. While this is true, part-time utilization reviews are in many ways similar to hourly nurses.
Part-time utilization review nurses are considered lower-cost alternatives to full-time nurses, but the difference is quite subtle. Part-time utilization reviews have a much lower hourly wage than full-time nurses, and a smaller benefit package. They are also used on a daily basis, so they are much more likely to be considered “shortchanging” employees.
If you’re a part-time utilization review nurse, you will be a lower category of hours than if you were a full-time nurse. Part time utilization review nurses are paid on a part-time basis. They are not required to work a certain number of hours a day. They can work as little as a half-hour or as many as a full-time shift. They are only required to work a certain number of hours a week.
The majority of the time spent by a part-time utilization review nurse is spent on their work. They may leave work early for a cup of coffee or for a meal. They may take a break from their work for a brief period of time to take care of something personal. They may work late into the night or early in the morning. They may spend the majority of their time on their work or reading the internet. They may read the internet a lot or not at all.
