Home health care companies are not happy with the Obama Administration’s push to require that home health workers receive minimum wage, despite the industry being one of just a few to maintain profits during the worst of the recession, reports USA Today.
Minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, and a Labor Department proposal issued in December calls for home health agencies to follow federal wage and hour laws for their workers, overturning a decades-old law that exempted home health care aides from federal wage laws.
Home health workers were never meant to be excluded from the law’s provision, according to the Labor Department, but changing the rules would affect the quality and cost of care for consumers, the industry says.
With Medicare and Medicaid accounting for about 75% of home health care service revenue, USA Today reports, salary increases in the industry could mean that the already-stretched government programs won’t be able to keep up.
Read the full USA Today. They recently ran another article talking about how high turnover affects home health quality, and how this could be related to low wages.
Showing posts with label home care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home care. Show all posts
Friday, March 02, 2012
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Senior Boom Creates A Demand For Home Health Workers
At her home health care agency here, Venus Ray quizzes 65 job applicants assembled before her: Can they cook? Do they know the right way to wash their hands? Can they safely transfer patients into wheelchairs? If they give wrong answers, speak English poorly or — God forbid — forget to turn off their cell phones, she asks them to leave.
Francess Sillah helps to transfer Tanya Pittman out of an imaginary wheel chair while role playing during a group interview at Health Management Inc. Venus Ray, the agency's executive director, looks on and assesses their skills to be a home health aide. (Photo by Jessica Marcy)
By the end of the session, Ray has dismissed 42 of the applicants, almost two-thirds, even though she's in dire need of employees.
Ray is executive director of Health Management Inc., which employs about 410 people, including 395 home health aides. With business booming, she is constantly looking to hire more, and she holds group interviews once or twice a month.
"There's a huge demand, and it's only going to get larger as the years go by," Ray said. With the nation's aging population, she added, many people "will tell you that they are more comfortable in their home."
The demand for workers by Ray's company mirrors national trends and is fueled in part by stepped-up efforts to keep seniors and the disabled out of nursing homes. The growth is likely to pick up in coming years as the 2010 federal health law tries to reduce hospital readmissions and expands programs such as Money Follows the Person, which encourages Medicaid recipients to receive care at home.
But experts warn that a shortage of qualified labor is looming. Workers often lack the training and support needed to properly care for patients, and poor working conditions lead to high turnover, experts say. In addition, salaries are low: In 2009, the median national hourly wage for direct-care workers — a term that includes home health aides — was $10.58, substantially below the $15.95 median for all U.S. workers.
Read full article...
Francess Sillah helps to transfer Tanya Pittman out of an imaginary wheel chair while role playing during a group interview at Health Management Inc. Venus Ray, the agency's executive director, looks on and assesses their skills to be a home health aide. (Photo by Jessica Marcy)
By the end of the session, Ray has dismissed 42 of the applicants, almost two-thirds, even though she's in dire need of employees.
Ray is executive director of Health Management Inc., which employs about 410 people, including 395 home health aides. With business booming, she is constantly looking to hire more, and she holds group interviews once or twice a month.
"There's a huge demand, and it's only going to get larger as the years go by," Ray said. With the nation's aging population, she added, many people "will tell you that they are more comfortable in their home."
The demand for workers by Ray's company mirrors national trends and is fueled in part by stepped-up efforts to keep seniors and the disabled out of nursing homes. The growth is likely to pick up in coming years as the 2010 federal health law tries to reduce hospital readmissions and expands programs such as Money Follows the Person, which encourages Medicaid recipients to receive care at home.
But experts warn that a shortage of qualified labor is looming. Workers often lack the training and support needed to properly care for patients, and poor working conditions lead to high turnover, experts say. In addition, salaries are low: In 2009, the median national hourly wage for direct-care workers — a term that includes home health aides — was $10.58, substantially below the $15.95 median for all U.S. workers.
Read full article...
Thursday, April 14, 2011
BrightStar Care CEO to be featured on the CBS hit Undercover Boss
BrightStar Care, one of the fastest growing home healthcare and staffing providers in the country has more than 200 locations across North America, including offices in Anne Arundel, Prince George, Montgomery and Baltimore Counties. BrightStar Care is one of the few full-service healthcare agencies to offer both medical and non-medical homecare to clients of all ages within their homes, as well as supplemental healthcare staffing to corporate clients such as hospitals and nursing homes.
Shelly Sun, the CEO and Co-Founder of BrightStar Care, said of her experience, "I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate on ‘Undercover Boss.’ The experience deepened my appreciation for our caregivers and their relentless efforts to improve their clients’ quality of life and relieve the stress their families face on a day-to-day basis. I look forward to more people learning about BrightStar Care. Our company hires individuals who are passionate about serving, and care deeply about others’ well-being and happiness. We look for people who can embody that high level of dedication every day.”
Shelly Sun, the CEO and Co-Founder of BrightStar Care, said of her experience, "I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate on ‘Undercover Boss.’ The experience deepened my appreciation for our caregivers and their relentless efforts to improve their clients’ quality of life and relieve the stress their families face on a day-to-day basis. I look forward to more people learning about BrightStar Care. Our company hires individuals who are passionate about serving, and care deeply about others’ well-being and happiness. We look for people who can embody that high level of dedication every day.”
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Home Health Agencies up in arms over new Medicare regulation
The following is an article written by Phil Galewitz Kaiser Health News.
Home health agencies, hospitals and consumer groups are complaining that a new rule intended to curb unnecessary Medicare spending will make it harder for senior citizens to get home care services.
Under the requirement, which is to take effect Friday, Medicare beneficiaries will have to see doctors 90 days before or 30 days after starting home health services in order for the home health agencies to be reimbursed. Those face-to-face visits may be a burden for some home-bound frail seniors, as well as those who live in rural areas, the industry says.
Some Medicare experts have little sympathy for industry complaints.
"Home health is a benefit that is out of control," said Dr. Robert Berenson, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute.
Medicare home health care typically consists of services such as skilled nursing, physical therapy and speech therapy. Unlike most services in Medicare, patients don't have co-payments or deductibles. The services can be prescribed for 60 days at a time, although there's no limit on the number of times they can be renewed.
Medicare home health costs doubled to $19 billion from 2002 to 2009. Cases of Medicare fraud also have been rising, and federal officials have launched a crackdown that includes prosecuting home health agencies that bill for services that weren't provided.
Under current law, doctors must prescribe home health care for patients to receive services, but the physicians don't have to see the patients to make that determination.
Medicare advisers to Congress say the regulation doesn't go far enough to reduce waste and fraud because it allows patients to start getting home health services before first seeing doctors to ensure that they need it.
"Such a large window ... does not ensure that beneficiaries receive an examination in a timely manner before home health care is delivered," the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission wrote in a report to Congress this month. Berenson is a member of the commission.
The doctor-visit rule, which was included in the health care overhaul, initially was to take effect Jan. 1 and was to require providers to see patients within 30 days before or two weeks after the start of home care. In December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services delayed implementation until April because of complaints from providers, who claimed that the rule was too stringent and most doctors were unaware of the change. At that time, the CMS also announced that it was expanding the time frame for patients to meet with doctors.
Now a coalition of home health industry, hospital and doctor groups and the AARP is pushing for another three-month extension.
CMS spokesman Tony Salters said the agency was listening to concerns, but he refused to say whether another extension will be granted. Salters said the agency didn't have any data to show what percentage of Medicare patients now got home care services without having recent visits with their doctors.
"There is a lot of confusion out there, and patients may lose access to their care," said Nora Super, an AARP lobbyist.
Dr. Roland Goertz, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the new rule added documentation requirements for physicians. "It makes our paperwork burden even more onerous," he said.
Under the rule, doctors would have to fill out forms that certify that they or other health care providers such as nurse practitioners had seen patients for the specific purpose of determining the patients' needs for home care. This would be in addition to doctors' current duties of prescribing home health care and signing off on care plans, which the home health agencies typically develop.
"A home health face-to-face encounter contradicts the purpose of home health care," Hoosier Uplands Home Health Care & Hospice in Mitchell, Ind., a rural area about 85 miles south of Indianapolis, wrote the CMS last year. "This would impose on the patient the need to leave home for increased and unnecessary physician visits."
But the home health agency voluntarily has tried out the new rule over the past three months and found only minor problems, such as doctors not filling out forms correctly, said Melissa Jeremiah, the director of operations for Hoosier Uplands.
Rochelle Archuleta, a policy expert at the American Hospital Association, said her organization was "hearing concerns from providers ... and that tells us this policy is not ready for enforcement." Hospitals are worried that patients who are discharged may not be able to get home health services immediately and hospital-owned home health agencies may have trouble complying with the law.
Home health agency groups said they understood Medicare's need to reduce unnecessary care but that the new rule was too onerous.
"We want to make sure beneficiaries who really need the services are not denied it," said Peter Notarstefano, the director of home and community-based services at Leading Age, which represents nonprofit home health agencies
Home health agencies, hospitals and consumer groups are complaining that a new rule intended to curb unnecessary Medicare spending will make it harder for senior citizens to get home care services.
Under the requirement, which is to take effect Friday, Medicare beneficiaries will have to see doctors 90 days before or 30 days after starting home health services in order for the home health agencies to be reimbursed. Those face-to-face visits may be a burden for some home-bound frail seniors, as well as those who live in rural areas, the industry says.
Some Medicare experts have little sympathy for industry complaints.
"Home health is a benefit that is out of control," said Dr. Robert Berenson, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute.
Medicare home health care typically consists of services such as skilled nursing, physical therapy and speech therapy. Unlike most services in Medicare, patients don't have co-payments or deductibles. The services can be prescribed for 60 days at a time, although there's no limit on the number of times they can be renewed.
Medicare home health costs doubled to $19 billion from 2002 to 2009. Cases of Medicare fraud also have been rising, and federal officials have launched a crackdown that includes prosecuting home health agencies that bill for services that weren't provided.
Under current law, doctors must prescribe home health care for patients to receive services, but the physicians don't have to see the patients to make that determination.
Medicare advisers to Congress say the regulation doesn't go far enough to reduce waste and fraud because it allows patients to start getting home health services before first seeing doctors to ensure that they need it.
"Such a large window ... does not ensure that beneficiaries receive an examination in a timely manner before home health care is delivered," the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission wrote in a report to Congress this month. Berenson is a member of the commission.
The doctor-visit rule, which was included in the health care overhaul, initially was to take effect Jan. 1 and was to require providers to see patients within 30 days before or two weeks after the start of home care. In December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services delayed implementation until April because of complaints from providers, who claimed that the rule was too stringent and most doctors were unaware of the change. At that time, the CMS also announced that it was expanding the time frame for patients to meet with doctors.
Now a coalition of home health industry, hospital and doctor groups and the AARP is pushing for another three-month extension.
CMS spokesman Tony Salters said the agency was listening to concerns, but he refused to say whether another extension will be granted. Salters said the agency didn't have any data to show what percentage of Medicare patients now got home care services without having recent visits with their doctors.
"There is a lot of confusion out there, and patients may lose access to their care," said Nora Super, an AARP lobbyist.
Dr. Roland Goertz, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the new rule added documentation requirements for physicians. "It makes our paperwork burden even more onerous," he said.
Under the rule, doctors would have to fill out forms that certify that they or other health care providers such as nurse practitioners had seen patients for the specific purpose of determining the patients' needs for home care. This would be in addition to doctors' current duties of prescribing home health care and signing off on care plans, which the home health agencies typically develop.
"A home health face-to-face encounter contradicts the purpose of home health care," Hoosier Uplands Home Health Care & Hospice in Mitchell, Ind., a rural area about 85 miles south of Indianapolis, wrote the CMS last year. "This would impose on the patient the need to leave home for increased and unnecessary physician visits."
But the home health agency voluntarily has tried out the new rule over the past three months and found only minor problems, such as doctors not filling out forms correctly, said Melissa Jeremiah, the director of operations for Hoosier Uplands.
Rochelle Archuleta, a policy expert at the American Hospital Association, said her organization was "hearing concerns from providers ... and that tells us this policy is not ready for enforcement." Hospitals are worried that patients who are discharged may not be able to get home health services immediately and hospital-owned home health agencies may have trouble complying with the law.
Home health agency groups said they understood Medicare's need to reduce unnecessary care but that the new rule was too onerous.
"We want to make sure beneficiaries who really need the services are not denied it," said Peter Notarstefano, the director of home and community-based services at Leading Age, which represents nonprofit home health agencies
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