Hey! My family and I are curious about hiring a private nurse for 3/times a week home HD but we’re not sure where to look.
Perhaps you should check with your dialysis center for ideas. Are you on Hemo or PD? I do PD 7 days a week 10 hours a day and it’s at night so I’m finished anytime around 9 or 10 am and have the rest of the day to do what I and my caregiver/girl friend want to do.l
Hi Tori,
There are some dialysis clinics and companies that offer “staff-assisted hemodialysis.” Where is the patient located? You may be able to find such a clinic on the Find a Clinic database.
Many people think that hemodialysis is the only (or best) treatment for them. It may or may not be. Hopefully before the patient started on dialysis, s/he received education about all treatment options. Hemodialysis in a clinic is the most common way dialysis is done because it is the default treatment and some doctors are biased against home dialysis, including peritoneal dialysis (PD). People of all ages and education levels are able to learn to do PD. PD can be done by the patient without help most of the time. Here’s a may help you or your loved one learn about and choose a treatment that fits best with your/their lifestyle and what is important to you/them. https://mydialysischoice.org/
We live in Locust Grove, VA. There’s 3 of those listed on the Clinic Search but I believe only one of them helps with HD and they didn’t offer help when we spoke with them on the phone.
I think the database doesn’t have the latest information. You could contact the two largest dialysis companies to ask about staff-assisted dialysis rather than calling every clinic.
-
Fresenius - 1-888-373-1470
-
DaVita - 1-800-424-6589
Some patients are capable of doing solo home hemodialysis without a helper. Is the patient able to do that? Because Medicare doesn’t pay for a helper and because it’s not easy to find a clinic that offers staff-assisted dialysis as you’ve seen, in most cases, a family member or friend will agree to be trained to do to home dialysis. Is there anyone you know who might be willing to do that as a volunteer or for payment? I wonder if there is anyone near you who has worked in dialysis as a nurse or patient care technician who might be interested in moonlighting to make some extra money and help with the patient’s dialysis. You’d want to check for certification if a patient care technician and state license if a nurse as well as to ask for references. Depending on where the person worked, the patient’s clinic would likely want the helper to prove competence and s/he may need to have some additional training to make sure s/he follows the clinic’s policies and procedures.
For someone without dialysis experience, home hemodialysis training takes about 3 weeks or so depending on how fast the person learns. If peritoneal dialysis might be an option, training for PD often takes about a week. You could ask the clinic how many hours/day training lasts. That may vary from clinic-to-clinic.
I have my trainer who is offering to do private pay with me. I live in Florida the villages Lady Lake area. She’s been with Fresenious 26 years and it’s decided to go and do this part time. She’s going to start next month and I have another friend who also wants to do it she’s a registered nurse. She just doesn’t know how to start those two should get together.
When someone hires a nurse to do their dialysis, unless the dialysis clinic knows that nurse’s skills, it will probably want to make sure the nurse is competent and will follow the clinic’s policies and procedures, which would likely require that the nurse spend some time at the dialysis clinic to demonstrate that they will do the treatments as patients are trained to do.