Home Health & Hospice Social Worker

The Home Health & Hospice Social Worker is responsible for the provision of a wide range of psychosocial services to terminally ill patients and their families.

At Otterbein, you’re more than an employee, you’re a Partner in Caring. Together, we work side by side toward a shared goal: delivering person-centered care that respects every resident and the choices they make.

Whether in our vibrant communities, our welcoming small house neighborhoods, Home Health, Hospice or Home Office, we provide the highest level of compassionate, quality care.

Join our team of Partners who are talented, kind, wise, funny, spirited, generous, endearing, and truly one-of-a-kind.

Shifts Available: PRN

Responsibilities:

• Conduct initial comprehensive psychosocial and bereavement risk assessment of patient/family/caregiver in a thorough, accurate, and compassionate fashion within five (5) calendar days after the patient’s election of Hospice care.
• Function as an expert and facilitator at obtaining and making referrals to community resources to meet the needs of patients and families including obtaining financial assistance when indicated and referring patients and families to community agencies with appropriate follow-up.
• Assist family/caregiver in placement of patient in a facility for basic care, respite or inpatient when appropriate as indicated.
• Provide psychosocial and anticipatory grief counseling to patients, families, caregivers and significant others relative to the impact and implications of the terminal disease and patient care.
• Assesses the psychosocial status of patient/family as it relates to capacity to cope with diseases, terminal illness, environment and death. Provides counseling services as applicable and assists in utilizing community resources.  Communicates findings to the team.
• Participate in the development of the plan of care and treatment.  Holds case conferences as needed.
• Prepare social histories, evaluations and plan interventions based on findings.
• Updates, maintains and submits clinical documentation according to agency guidelines in an accurate and timely manner.  Assists with discharge planning.
• Attends and participates in scheduled interdisciplinary team meetings (IDT) to coordinate care plans, follow up on changes, problem solve, identify social problems, their severity and interrelatedness to the medical situations, as well as, assessing family strengths and weaknesses and discussing alternate methods of alleviating the situation.
• Assist team members in understanding significant social and emotional factors of the patient & family.
• Ensures all care is provided with respect and dignity for patients, reports all complaints, reports all allegations of abuse, misappropriation of patient property and/or any other corporate compliance items.
• Acts as a mentor to other personnel by participating in orientation and assisting with field training and in-service education to contractors and referral sources
• Teaches the patient, family and/or caregiver regarding the progression of the disease process and self-care techniques, which includes providing counseling support/ instructions as ordered by physician.

Skills

• Must have effective communication, comprehension, documentation, interpersonal and computer skills.
• Ability to assess patient needs and formulate individualized patient care plans to meet those needs.
• Ability to work in a field setting and exhibit ability to make sound judgments.

Qualifications

• Education: Master's degree in social work from a school of social work accredited by the Council on Social Work Education
• Licensure: Valid driver’s license and reliable transpor