Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse

Who these nurses care for

Patients at end of life, in home, facility or inpatient hospice settings.

What the shift actually looks like

A caseload rather than a shift. Symptom management, family support and death itself as a routine part of the work. Clinical demand is moderate; emotional demand is not.

Credentials and certifications

Typically required

BLS; CHPN valued

Typical ratio

Visit- or census-based

What to specify when you send the req

Setting, caseload, on-call rotation and whether the role includes admissions.

Why this role is hard to fill

Emotional sustainability matters more than technical skill for retention. Describe the caseload honestly.

What candidates ask before accepting

Answering these in the req itself shortens the process considerably, because they are the questions that otherwise surface at offer stage and cause declines: Caseload size, on-call structure, whether admissions are included, and bereavement support for staff.

Contract or permanent?

Contract for census swings, leave coverage and seasonal surge. Per diem to protect ratios without expanding core FTE. Permanent when the seat is structural. The expensive mistake is running contract labour for eighteen months on a role that was always permanent.

Licensure

Registered nursing is covered by the Nurse Licensure Compact in most of the country, so a multistate license lets a nurse work across member states without a new application. Thirteen jurisdictions sit outside it — Alaska, California, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands — and in those markets every out-of-state nurse needs a single-state license first. Those are the markets where reqs stay open longest.

How we work this req

Every candidate is spoken to before you see them, with licensure for your state, certifications and unit-specific competency confirmed before submittal. We screen to the credential the unit actually needs rather than the title on the posting. Rates sit inside the ranges on our published cost breakdown.