Home Health Nurse Job Description Templates

A home health nurse provides skilled nursing care to patients in their homes, following a physician-ordered plan of care. It is independent, travel-based nursing built around assessment, treatment, and heavy documentation, and the role carries licensure and compliance obligations that hospital nursing handles through whole departments. For a small home health or private-duty agency, hiring one well starts with a job description that names the role, the license, and the home-health-specific requirements the generic templates leave out.

At FirstHR, we build templates for agencies making this hire without a credentialing department, where the owner or director of nursing writes the posting between patient visits. The six templates below cover the role across settings: general home health nurse, home health RN, home health LPN/LVN, private duty nurse, pediatric home health nurse, and a small agency version. Each is ready to use, with the license, OASIS, HIPAA, and driving fields built in. For the fundamentals behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description is a useful companion.

What a Home Health Nurse Does

A home health nurse provides skilled nursing care to patients in their homes, following a physician-ordered plan of care. The work is hands-on and independent: assessing the patient and the home, administering medications and IV therapy, performing wound and catheter care, educating caregivers, and documenting each visit.

What makes home health distinct from hospital nursing is the autonomy and the documentation. The nurse travels between homes without an on-site team, assesses home safety, and for Medicare-certified care completes OASIS assessments tied directly to reimbursement. A registered nurse manages the plan of care and supervises LPNs and aides, while an LPN/LVN delivers ongoing care under that supervision. For scoping the role to your agency, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.

Home Health Nurse Duties and Responsibilities

Home health nurse duties cluster into four areas: clinical care, documentation, visits and travel, and coordination and education. A strong job description picks the specific responsibilities from each area that match the role and setting, rather than listing every possible task.

For an LPN the duties run under RN supervision; for an RN they extend to OASIS assessment, the plan of care, and supervising the case. A pediatric or private-duty role adds high-acuity skills like vent or trach care. Scale the responsibilities to the specific role, and for related care positions the same pattern holds, which is why hiring a personal care aide or a nurse shares the same structure.

Which Template Should You Use?

Pick the template by role and setting. The core structure is the same across all six, but each one emphasizes the duties, license, and compliance that fit a specific kind of home health nursing role. Use this guide to choose the closest fit, then adjust.

6 Free Home Health Nurse Job Description Templates

Download all six as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: agency and job summary, key responsibilities, qualifications, compliance fields, schedule and pay, and how to apply, with an EEO statement. Fill in the brackets and post.

Template 1: General Home Health Nurse

The universal baseline covering skilled visits, the plan of care, documentation, and travel. Use this when the role is not specific to RN or LPN, or as the base to adapt.

Template 2: Home Health RN

For the registered nurse who completes OASIS assessments, manages the plan of care, and supervises LPNs and aides on the case. The most documentation-heavy version.

Template 3: Home Health LPN / LVN

For the practical nurse delivering hands-on care under RN supervision: treatments, monitoring, and reporting within the LPN/LVN scope. A travel-based visit role.

Template 4: Private Duty Nurse

For continuous, shift-based, one-on-one care of a single patient, often medically complex, rather than intermittent visits. RN or LPN, with shift and live-in options.

Template 5: Pediatric Home Health Nurse

For skilled care of infants and children, often vent, trach, or G-tube, with a focus on family coaching and child-specific clinical skill. RN or LPN.

Template 6: Small Agency / Owner-Led

Written for the owner-led agency: a manageable caseload, a direct line to leadership, and built-in onboarding and credential support. The version no competitor offers.

Licensure, OASIS, and Compliance

This is the part the generic templates skip, and it is the part that matters most for a home health nurse hire: the licensure and certification the role requires, the OASIS and CMS documentation tied to reimbursement, and the driving requirements the travel-based work demands. Get these right and your posting attracts qualified candidates and protects your agency.

For more on how hourly and per-visit pay interacts with overtime classification, the exempt versus non-exempt guide and the Fair Labor Standards Act overview explain the rules that apply to nursing roles paid by the hour or the visit.

Skills and Requirements

Home health nurse roles start from an active license, current certification, and reliable transportation, with experience and EHR familiarity as strong pluses. Scale the requirements to the role and acuity.

Keep the posting neutral and inclusive, since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on a protected characteristic, and the SHRM guide covers the standard sections of a job description.

Home Health Nurse Pay

Home health nurse pay varies by role, region, and pay model, and is often hourly or per visit rather than a fixed salary. Set your range using government data as a baseline, then adjust for your local market and pay structure.

Home health pay typically runs near or somewhat below the national median depending on the market, and many field nurses are paid per visit, often quoted as a rate per completed visit, plus mileage reimbursement and sometimes a phone stipend. Private-duty nurses are usually paid an hourly shift rate. Pay runs higher in metro areas and states like California and New York. Because the field is high-turnover and demand is steady, a competitive, transparent pay range and a clear mileage policy help a small agency attract reliable nurses. National compensation surveys can help you benchmark per-visit and shift rates in your market.

Hiring for a Small Agency

A large home health system hires nurses through a credentialing department with HR and compliance support. A small owner-led agency does not. The owner or director of nursing writes the posting, verifies the license, screens applicants, and onboards the field nurse, often between patient visits. Here is how to write the posting and handle the hire for that reality.

From Hiring to Onboarding

The job description is step one. Once a candidate accepts, the same document becomes the basis for the offer and a home-health-specific onboarding. Because the role is licensed, travel-based, and high-turnover, a smooth, repeatable process pays off every time you hire.

Once your offer is ready, the offer letter template handles the next step, and an onboarding template gives the new nurse a structured start, alongside the usual new hire paperwork. FirstHR connects the offer, paperwork, e-signatures, training acknowledgments, and credential tracking in one place so a small home health or private-duty agency can manage the full process, including license and certification expirations, from one system. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not an OASIS, EVV, or clinical-charting tool, and it does not run payroll or administer benefits, so connect those separately. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.

Frequently Asked Questions