From my experience, I did SNF work for about 3 months, it was a bridge before I started my fellowship and I'm PM&R trained. Great lifestyle - I worked for a national staffing company that finds opens in facilities across the country. 3-4 days a week at 3 facilities, anywhere from 35-50 patients a day - the primary team managed all the medical issues and my role was as a consultant. I managed anything from SCI to spasticity, getting patients set up for wheelchair fitting, orthotics recommendations, a bit of TBI management, bowel/bladder recommendations, non-opiate pain management, a handful of peripheral joint injections but overall bread and butter general rehab and assessing barriers to rehab/meeting functional goals.
It would be good to get in favor with the rehab team as well, developing relationships with the the therapists, attending occasional care team meetings, discussing specific patients and as they get closer to discharge, they'll be reminded to follow-up with Dr. GoBeers for their knee/back etc pain
I found that many of the patients are managed by the NP/PA from a medical standpoint and I was the only physician they'd see regularly. I agree, there were a lot of patients where it didn't seem like I was doing much but they were very appreciative of someone discussing goals with them on a bi-weekly basis as the geriatric population, particularly in these settings, are often just left behind.
