Primary care providers Briana Rotter, FNP and Nick Kinder, AGNP recently joined our clinical team.
For many recently graduated nurse practitioners (NP), finding that perfect job right out of school is an unrealistic goal. Typically, new grads need to take less attractive opportunities in order to gain the knowledge and experience necessary to land that ideal position. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case for two of Housecall Providers’ newest NPs, Briana Rotter, FNP and Nick Kinder, AGNP, who feel that they found the right fit their first time around.
“I was a nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center working night shift and going to NP school,” recalls Briana. “Since I was minoring in palliative care, my colleagues would constantly tell me that when I graduated, I should consider working at Housecall Providers. Treating patients in their environment, not making them go out to get care, instead, bring the well to the sick – I have always loved that model,” she continued.
Like Briana, Nick worked full time while going to NP school. A former cardiac ICU nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Nick was introduced to house calls as an undergrad and reintroduced during his house call clinical rotation. “I was struck by the relationship that the practitioner had with the patients, everybody is on a first name basis – you sit down with them at their kitchen table and it seemed that people were being real and honest about what they were doing at home and how they were caring for themselves,” Nick said.
Aside from being drawn to the mission and service delivery model of Housecall Providers, the length of the orientation and the competitive training salary immediately attracted the new providers. “The six-month training is very established and concrete and also very generous,” Briana said.
Nick agreed. “The structure and length of the training sets the new graduate up for success. I can concentrate on making sure that I am hitting all the points with the patient, rather than worrying about the 100 patients I could be assigned as soon as my training is over.”
The focus on preparing our new primary care providers with one of the finest home-based medical trainings in the country prompted our leadership last fall to create the Dr. Benneth Husted Legacy Fund, to assist in the recruitment, training and retention of high quality clinicians. The fund, which pays tribute to our founder, has raised over $50,000 to date and signals the commitment to excellent patient-centered care for years to come.
Diana Oslund, Housecall Providers’ human resources specialist, says the extended training period is catered to the new graduate and designed to ensure a provider’s success in the field, which will ultimately translate to our patients receiving the best care possible. “A new clinician coming on board with our practice will receive the support, resources and mentoring to guide them through the process of becoming a successful primary care clinician at Housecall Providers,” she said.
As new NPs and physician assistants learn Housecall Providers’ system and their skills and confidence grows, they gradually begin to see more patients, so by the training’s completion, they are well on their way to having built a full patient panel.
Though the training is rigorous, new providers don’t have to go it alone. Housecall Providers assigns every clinician a care coordinator that is responsible for all the behind the scenes work like managing caregiver phone calls and referrals, scheduling, ordering medications and equipment, and advocating on behalf of the patient with insurance companies and Medicare. For a new clinician, especially one that has spent a medical career in an in-patient setting, they are a wealth of knowledge and support. “I cannot tell you how reassuring it is to be a new provider and have an experienced care coordinator assisting me at every turn,” Nick said. “Because of the enormous support system at Housecall Providers, I am never walking into a patient’s home alone.”
