A home health SLP interview should be a two-way process. Just as your potential employer is interviewing you, you should interview them to determine if their company would be a suitable fit for you. Each setting has its own benefits and drawbacks. After six years working in home health and hospice, I’d like to suggest some questions you should consider asking if you’re interviewing for a home health SLP position.
Free DIRECT download: 50 interview questions for home health SLPs (cheat sheet). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Outline:
- First, do your homework.
- Territory.
- Productivity expectations.
- Adjustments to productivity.
- Flexibility in work days and hours.
- Scheduling.
- Software, equipment, and materials.
- Training.
- Salary and benefits.
- Continuing education, license, certifications.
- Holidays and time off.
- Talk to another SLP at the company?
- Other questions you would ask in a home health SLP interview?
- Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts.
First, do your homework
Don’t waste your interviewer’s time by asking questions that were answered in the job posting or on their website. You’ll probably have limited time, plus it wouldn’t reflect well on you.
Print out the list of questions in the handout above, and jot down the information you find as you read up about the company and job position. If you know anyone who works for them, ask them questions.
You may be able to find a current or former employee in a therapy group on social media. I’d recommend putting a question mark by any information that you only receive from other therapists. If any of that information is a potential deal-breaker for you, be sure to ask your interviewer or someone in Human Resources (HR).
I’ve listed all the questions I could think of. You likely wouldn’t have a chance to ask all of them during a single interview. I’d recommend narrowing the questions down to the ones that are most important to you.
Territory
Your assigned territory will play a huge role in how long your workdays are. Drive time is time that you’re not seeing patients or documenting.
While some clinicians call physicians, co-workers, and family members while driving, I don’t because I don’t want to be distracted. Besides, I need to take notes, otherwise I may forget the details when I document the call later.
You should consider the size of the territory, highway versus city street, and traffic patterns. I’d suggest using a maps app to calculate some drive times between the furthest points you’d be willing to travel. Try to do this during the work day, so you can see the effects of daytime travel.
Some companies take travel distance into account when calculating productivity, or they may offer a monetary bonus if you drive over a certain number of miles or go out of your usual territory, which are important factors to consider.
Productivity expectations
Another huge factor to consider is productivity expectations. Some companies require a flat number of visits each week, while others operate on a point system. If they work on a point system, find out the details.
Another question to ask is how long they expect sessions to be. In my experience, evaluations are generally 60-90 minutes, while routine sessions are generally 40-50 minutes.
Ask how extra visits are paid. Some companies pay a flat rate, while others offer different pay for different visit types.
Also ask what happens if you can’t meet productivity through no fault of your own. For instance, a patient may go into the hospital, and the agency doesn’t have another referral for you.
Once you find out how many sessions you would do in a typical day, how long they’re expected to be, and your territory size, you can get a good idea of how long your workdays will be.
Just remember to estimate the time for everything else that you may have to accomplish:
- Completing documentation.
- Making phone calls to physicians, other clinicians, vendors, patients, and families.
- Checking email and voicemail.
- Dropping off paperwork, making copies, resupplying, and sending faxes.
- Meetings.
- Prepping for future sessions.
Adjustments to productivity
The company likely adjusts productivity requirements for at least some activities, such as mandatory training, meetings, chart reviews, and inservices that you provide to your fellow employees or to the community.
Also find out how things are handled if a patient refuses a visit when you arrive or isn’t even home.
Flexibility in work days and hours
Find out if they would expect you to work specific days and hours.
One of the best things about working in home health is the flexibility. I’ve never had a problem with moving patient visits around to accommodate my own medical appointments. If we’re projected to have severe weather on a particular day, I can easily move patients to another day that week. Check to see if you can move visits to a day you don’t normally work at your own discretion, or if you would need to clear it with your supervisor.
In general, the initial evaluation would ideally be completed within 24 hours, but as long as follow-up visits stay within the certification period, it likely doesn’t matter when they occur during the week.
If you have personal responsibilities that may conflict with routine meetings, find out the days and times so you can bring that conflict up at the appropriate time.
Scheduling
Find out how scheduling works. How much advance warning would you typically receive before a new evaluation is added to your caseload? Do the schedulers assist with setting up appointments?
Software, equipment, and supplies
Probably the final factor that plays a huge role in how long your workdays will be is the specific EMR software that your company uses. If you don’t have experience with their EMR, ask your SLP friends IRL or in online Facebook groups what they think of that software.
Ask if the EMR depends on an internet connection. If it does, you may find that accessing the EMR or documenting in patient’s homes may be challenging.
Documentation requirements are much higher in home health than in any other setting I’ve worked in, and your day will be longer if the software is clunky to use.
Ask if the company provides a work phone, or if you’ll have to use your own. If they provide a phone, see if they’ll provide any apps related to speech therapy. If you have to use your own phone, ask if the company provides a stipend.
Find out if they provide any speech therapy equipment or supplies, for instance:
- iPads with therapy or AAC apps.
- LSVT LOUD software and microphone.
- Balls for CTAR.
- Tongue depressors.
- Long cotton swabs.
- Standardized assessments.
- Therapy materials.
Ask if the agency will provide PPE, barriers, hand sanitizer, and vitals equipment. I would have thought they all would as a matter of course, but I saw another SLP mention that one of the companies she works for doesn’t provide PPE.
Training
Find out how many sessions you’ll be able to shadow with other clinicians. Your company may provide a single visit with another SLP, allow you to shadow for several days, or they may even have you shadow clinicians from other disciplines.
Then find out how many sessions another SLP will shadow you. Another SLP, or a supervisor, will likely observe you for at least one visit to sign off on your competency on procedures. I’ve gone out with newly-hired SLPs for anywhere from a single visit to all visits for two weeks, depending on the confidence level and prior experience of that SLP.
You should also ask how much training you’ll receive on the computer, EMR, OASIS assessment and documentation, wearing PPE, and the clean bag technique.
Salary and benefits
The interviewer may or may not bring up salary and benefits. Sometimes, if a position is offered, the HR representative would go over salary and benefits. Salary may be negotiable, but sometimes salary is determined strictly by position and experience level.
Also ask about salary increases. Is there an automatic yearly increase to adjust for cost of living? Are raises based on merit?
Do some math ahead of time to calculate your desired salary and the absolute minimum you could afford to accept. Be sure to take into account other fringe benefits, such as whether the company pays for continuing education, licenses or certifications
Continuing education, license, certifications
Find out if the company you’re interviewing with offers access to online CEUs, or if they’ll reimburse you for continuing education courses you may take. If the agency offers Hospice care, then you’ll likely have to complete a certain number of hours of training per year. For me, that’s six hours, and my company provides it.
Your agency may also offer in-person inservices (in normal times) that may count towards continuing education requirements.
Some companies reimburse the cost of license or certification fees. These may include the ASHA CCCs, your state license, CPR, and specialty certifications such as FEES, MBS-IMP, LSVT LOUD, or Vital-Stim.
Holidays and time off
Ask how holidays, sick time, and paid time off work. You may be expected to work, or be on-call, for one or more holidays during the year. You may have to use PTO for holidays. PTO may accrue without limit, or there may be a cap. You may have to pay attention to your PTO levels at the end of the calendar or fiscal year.
Your company may limit how much time you can ask off in general, or just around holidays. You may only be allowed to ask for time off during one major holiday per year. And you may have last choice as to which holiday that is if you’re the newest employee.
Also find out if there are other SLPs who can help cover your caseload when you take time off. It’s nice to have another SLP help cover, but usually they’re already busy. And most of my patients don’t want another clinician to fill in, so they often ask for the visits to be cancelled. If I know I’m going to have time off and that another SLP can’t cover, I’ll write the orders to accommodate that.
Talk to another SLP at the company?
If at all possible, ask to speak with another SLP that works for the company. Find out what they like about working there, and what they wish were different. Ask what a typical day is like, then ask them to describe the toughest day they had last week. Finally, ask if there was anything they wished they had known before accepting their position.
Other questions you would ask in a home health SLP interview?
I hope this list helps you figure out the questions that are most important to you. I’m sure I’ve overlooked some important questions. Please let me know what else you would add to the list!
Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts
- My best day as a home health SLP.
- My worst day as a home health SLP.
- 5 ways I improved work-life balance as a home health SLP.
- 7 tips to benefit your home health patients and minimize your workload.
- Best gear for home health therapists and nurses.
Free DIRECT download: 50 interview questions for home health SLPs (cheat sheet). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Featured image by mentatdgt from Pexels.
Lisa earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
She participated in research studies with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the University of Maryland in the areas of aphasia, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, and fluency disorders.
Lisa has been working as a medical speech-language pathologist since 2008. She has a strong passion for evidence-based assessment and therapy, having earned five ASHA Awards for Professional Participation in Continuing Education.
She launched EatSpeakThink.com in June 2018 to help other clinicians be more successful working in home health, as well as to provide strategies and resources to people living with problems eating, speaking, or thinking.
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