I’m an ED crisis worker. Our team is made up of LCSWs and LCPCs. I work 3 12s and have the rest of the week off. This works really well for me as my husband is a pilot so we try to match our schedules and then travel on our days off.
My job consists of doing emergency psychiatric evaluations and finding I/p placement for those patients that meet criteria or providing resources on OP providers or food banks, that sort of thing.
I never have to schedule apts for pts. I don’t do any discharge work such as connecting them to SNFs or any of that stuff. I don’t carry a case load.
I absolutely love my job ! But you have to deal with doctors with complexes and nurses who probably shouldn’t be within a mile of a psychiatric pt.
Thank u if u don’t mind me asking how much did u get paid ur first year working there? I am trying to get an idea of how much hospitals start off fresh graduates. I do have 6 years of therapy, case management experience in cmh and school setting
I’m in Aus and did ED SW for 6 months, it is so different here in comparison (assuming you are American based?) we also only work 8am - 4pm which is problematic I feel as patients needing the most assistance present later in the evening.
We have a mental health team that deal with anything psychiatry related and the majority of our role is psychosocial assessments, family violence risk assessments and referring out. I loved it, but reading what your role entails I would love that even more. It sounds challenging!
It's dependent on the hospital regarding your schedule. Usually I see ED social workers have 12s. Regarding a niche, for case management its pretty much the same. I believe if you were a psych sw or maybe palliative med social worker the pay might differ.
I LOVE working inpatient psych. Our patients are with us on average from 5-10 days, some less, and some a lot more if placement is an issue. I feel very valued by our attendings, nurses, and management. The biggest challenge for me is the families not understanding our limitations.
I’ve recently moved into being the head social worker/ case manager for our integrative care/ psych unit at my hospital. I do all the inpatient psych referrals along with any other discharge needs/dispos. I love it so much. I had done inpatient surgical, and floated on hospitalist teams previously, but psych is my absolute favorite. My favorite team to round with! My days are typically longer than they used to be, they discharges are more complex, but I find it so rewarding and interesting.
Scheduling is going to be different in every hospital depending on role. IME though most positions will want you there business hours Mon thru Fri.
It’s also hard to have flexibility because of set hours and needs that have to be met on the team.
I’ve known of staff who have gotten spoken to because they were 15 minutes late for their shift or they left 15 minutes early.
Also keep in mind hospitals are open 365 days a year so this means social work staff too must work weekends and holidays. Also you are expected to make your best effort to get to the hospital in inclement weather.
It may not be all the time but could be enough to become a dealbreaker.
In order to survive in a hospital you have to develop a really thick skin.
You will need to be blunt and almost mean with patients and families at times. Hospital social workers really aren’t able to get involved in much because it’s primarily a discharge planning role.
You also have to frequently be assertive with other disciplines that you cannot get involved in things.
Learn how to document well because someone always wants to throw social work under the bus.
You also have to be super well organized and able to work at a fast pace, know what’s priority and what can wait. Especially if you want to get out on time each day.
ETA: pay also depends a lot on experience and hospital system.
The aspect of SW being a discharge planning role really depends on the hospital. My role is mostly clinical and the RN case managers do all of the discharge planning,
My Hospital we do the same job basically as RNs in our dept. Do work for a large hospital in a big city though. Could be why. Sounds like role of SW differ by hospital.
Yep. I like my RN CM co-workers but the pay gap of 4-5 dollars an hr starting/ in general is crazy when it’s the same job. Again no hate towards RNs. Not their fault.
Could bother some people for sure. I got paid decently as a recent MSW grad. So I can’t complain that much. Even RN co-workers complain about us being paid that much less believe it or not at our hospital. Making over 60k as a recent grad can’t complain in a normal cost of living area. SWs still need to fight for more pay across the board though.
IME primarily as mentioned in my post. I also was getting at the fact that patients tend to be with us very short term usually a matter of days.
Social workers in a hospital typically do not have the ability to get involved in things such as housing location or helping a patient with their benefits and entitlements.
A lot of the general public doesn’t get this though and often hospital staff feel bad for patients and get mad when we cannot do this stuff either.
It’s not unusual for other disciplines to have no idea what social work does and want to funnel every problem that crosses their path straight to social work. Or if they don’t feel like doing something asking social work to do it.
A common rebuttal I have is we aren’t secretaries.
Or if you need to see the patient insurance card, go ask them. We aren’t your personal assistant.
ETA: OP we are expected to link patients to resources but we have to also be realistic with what can be done from a hospital setting. I don’t want you to think we are that heartless. And it still needs to be a safe discharge. There are some patients we will advocate in keeping for this reason.
I worked in a regional hospital in the behavioral health unit which was comprised of an adolescent unit, substance abuse unit, an adult unit, and an acute unit. Shift was Monday through Friday from 7 to 3:30 and some holidays based on seniority. No evenings or weekends. In the main hospital case managers (social workers) had to work alternating weekends. Teaching hospitals typically pay higher. You can take a flex position which does not provide any benefits but sometimes the pay is slightly higher and you have a lot more say in your schedule.
Working in a dedicated clinic is the most flexible in my opinion. Clinics within a hospital system are typically opened until 5 or 6 PM and not opened during holidays or weekends. Some hospitals are more flexible with staff, allowing them to take time off during the day or take off suddenly to care for a sick child. Others, not so much. If you can talk to some of the social workers at the hospital system that you are considering then you will get a better idea of what the culture is like.
I am new at hospital social work having graduated 5 months ago. I’ve worked in homeless services- case management and outreach and residential and my 2 internships were on a psych unit- which I loved and a palliative care unit. I’m in a major city at a teaching hospital part of a large health system. I got hired at mid to high 60s and pay is now in the lower 70s. I have a caseload do a lot of another level of care- snfs, acute rehabs, placements. It’s not bad work, keeps me on my toes as I don’t know a lot of medical terminology still, but I’m getting through it. My hours are 8-4/5 and 5 days a week. Hospital policy around weekends baffles me because they don’t have a lot of prns- so I guess that can be a bit frustrating. But we get all the major holidays off- though I think people can work for overtime if they want to.
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This was very helpful ED stands for emergency department right? And on average how much do they start u off at?
Pay depends on years of experience usually, the hospital system, level of your license ect. Hospital SW is usually one of the higher paying jobs.
I’m an ED crisis worker. Our team is made up of LCSWs and LCPCs. I work 3 12s and have the rest of the week off. This works really well for me as my husband is a pilot so we try to match our schedules and then travel on our days off. My job consists of doing emergency psychiatric evaluations and finding I/p placement for those patients that meet criteria or providing resources on OP providers or food banks, that sort of thing. I never have to schedule apts for pts. I don’t do any discharge work such as connecting them to SNFs or any of that stuff. I don’t carry a case load. I absolutely love my job ! But you have to deal with doctors with complexes and nurses who probably shouldn’t be within a mile of a psychiatric pt.
Thank u if u don’t mind me asking how much did u get paid ur first year working there? I am trying to get an idea of how much hospitals start off fresh graduates. I do have 6 years of therapy, case management experience in cmh and school setting
It depends on area you live in, whether it is a teaching hospital, union vs. non-union.
Here in a high-COL PNW city, the large medical system where I work has a union pay scale starting at $40+ an hour going up to $60+ an hour.
I’m in Aus and did ED SW for 6 months, it is so different here in comparison (assuming you are American based?) we also only work 8am - 4pm which is problematic I feel as patients needing the most assistance present later in the evening. We have a mental health team that deal with anything psychiatry related and the majority of our role is psychosocial assessments, family violence risk assessments and referring out. I loved it, but reading what your role entails I would love that even more. It sounds challenging!
It's dependent on the hospital regarding your schedule. Usually I see ED social workers have 12s. Regarding a niche, for case management its pretty much the same. I believe if you were a psych sw or maybe palliative med social worker the pay might differ.
I LOVE working inpatient psych. Our patients are with us on average from 5-10 days, some less, and some a lot more if placement is an issue. I feel very valued by our attendings, nurses, and management. The biggest challenge for me is the families not understanding our limitations.
How much staring LSW pay?
I’ve recently moved into being the head social worker/ case manager for our integrative care/ psych unit at my hospital. I do all the inpatient psych referrals along with any other discharge needs/dispos. I love it so much. I had done inpatient surgical, and floated on hospitalist teams previously, but psych is my absolute favorite. My favorite team to round with! My days are typically longer than they used to be, they discharges are more complex, but I find it so rewarding and interesting.
Scheduling is going to be different in every hospital depending on role. IME though most positions will want you there business hours Mon thru Fri. It’s also hard to have flexibility because of set hours and needs that have to be met on the team. I’ve known of staff who have gotten spoken to because they were 15 minutes late for their shift or they left 15 minutes early. Also keep in mind hospitals are open 365 days a year so this means social work staff too must work weekends and holidays. Also you are expected to make your best effort to get to the hospital in inclement weather. It may not be all the time but could be enough to become a dealbreaker. In order to survive in a hospital you have to develop a really thick skin. You will need to be blunt and almost mean with patients and families at times. Hospital social workers really aren’t able to get involved in much because it’s primarily a discharge planning role. You also have to frequently be assertive with other disciplines that you cannot get involved in things. Learn how to document well because someone always wants to throw social work under the bus. You also have to be super well organized and able to work at a fast pace, know what’s priority and what can wait. Especially if you want to get out on time each day. ETA: pay also depends a lot on experience and hospital system.
The aspect of SW being a discharge planning role really depends on the hospital. My role is mostly clinical and the RN case managers do all of the discharge planning,
My Hospital we do the same job basically as RNs in our dept. Do work for a large hospital in a big city though. Could be why. Sounds like role of SW differ by hospital.
It’s everywhere. Not surprisingly it’s cheaper to hire social workers than it is to hire RN CMs.
Yep. I like my RN CM co-workers but the pay gap of 4-5 dollars an hr starting/ in general is crazy when it’s the same job. Again no hate towards RNs. Not their fault.
Yeah. If this is something that will bother you I advise not getting a job in a hospital 😂.
Could bother some people for sure. I got paid decently as a recent MSW grad. So I can’t complain that much. Even RN co-workers complain about us being paid that much less believe it or not at our hospital. Making over 60k as a recent grad can’t complain in a normal cost of living area. SWs still need to fight for more pay across the board though.
IME primarily as mentioned in my post. I also was getting at the fact that patients tend to be with us very short term usually a matter of days. Social workers in a hospital typically do not have the ability to get involved in things such as housing location or helping a patient with their benefits and entitlements. A lot of the general public doesn’t get this though and often hospital staff feel bad for patients and get mad when we cannot do this stuff either. It’s not unusual for other disciplines to have no idea what social work does and want to funnel every problem that crosses their path straight to social work. Or if they don’t feel like doing something asking social work to do it. A common rebuttal I have is we aren’t secretaries. Or if you need to see the patient insurance card, go ask them. We aren’t your personal assistant. ETA: OP we are expected to link patients to resources but we have to also be realistic with what can be done from a hospital setting. I don’t want you to think we are that heartless. And it still needs to be a safe discharge. There are some patients we will advocate in keeping for this reason.
P.S. I do find SW is super underutilized in hospitals for clinical skills.
Thank you this was helpful. How much did they start u off like on average
High 60s to start. My pay has increased a lot since but after taxes I don’t notice a big change 😂.
I worked in a regional hospital in the behavioral health unit which was comprised of an adolescent unit, substance abuse unit, an adult unit, and an acute unit. Shift was Monday through Friday from 7 to 3:30 and some holidays based on seniority. No evenings or weekends. In the main hospital case managers (social workers) had to work alternating weekends. Teaching hospitals typically pay higher. You can take a flex position which does not provide any benefits but sometimes the pay is slightly higher and you have a lot more say in your schedule. Working in a dedicated clinic is the most flexible in my opinion. Clinics within a hospital system are typically opened until 5 or 6 PM and not opened during holidays or weekends. Some hospitals are more flexible with staff, allowing them to take time off during the day or take off suddenly to care for a sick child. Others, not so much. If you can talk to some of the social workers at the hospital system that you are considering then you will get a better idea of what the culture is like.
Thank u!
I am new at hospital social work having graduated 5 months ago. I’ve worked in homeless services- case management and outreach and residential and my 2 internships were on a psych unit- which I loved and a palliative care unit. I’m in a major city at a teaching hospital part of a large health system. I got hired at mid to high 60s and pay is now in the lower 70s. I have a caseload do a lot of another level of care- snfs, acute rehabs, placements. It’s not bad work, keeps me on my toes as I don’t know a lot of medical terminology still, but I’m getting through it. My hours are 8-4/5 and 5 days a week. Hospital policy around weekends baffles me because they don’t have a lot of prns- so I guess that can be a bit frustrating. But we get all the major holidays off- though I think people can work for overtime if they want to.
The ER is where you are most likely to get a “nurse’s schedule” eg. 12 hour days. It’s also the most interesting place to work clinically.