What They’re Saying
What They’re Saying
• For-profit and non-profit home health programs are "having a terrible time with recruitment and retention of staff," stated a letter to the editor in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Often, home health aides skip work with little notice and the turnover is great. The letter offers the following reason: Aides are not paid enough and receive little respect for their work. Most earn between $7.50 and $8 per hour, about the same as a fast food worker, while a baseball player earns millions. "So, what are we going to do about this caregiver problem? How can we attract quality people? We "boomers" better figure it out pretty quick. Soon we will be the elderly," the letter stated.
• "All Quiet on the Senior Front," an article about seniors skeptical of home care providers’ campaign to increase federal payments, ran in Modern Healthcare in May and received some responses from concerned providers. In one letter to the editor, Donald Wilver Jr., chief human resources officer of Sun Home Health Services (Northumberland, PA), said that growth in the industry has resulted from early hospital discharge and better technology, enabling people to be monitored from home. But the new payment system, Wilver said, has forced 25% of providers out of the Medicare business. Another letter to the editor was written by Carmen Spears, director of home healthcare at Seiling Municipal Hospital (Seiling, OK). Spears was offended by a statement made by a government aide, who suggested that the providers were having "trouble paying for a second Mercedes." She would never be able to afford such a car, she said. And as for a comment that said beneficiaries have not seen reduced access to home health services because of Medicare reform, she responded that many businesses were in it for the money and have closed their doors, while other agencies continue to cut salaries, benefits, and equipment in order to care for the people.
• Mary Suther, chairwoman of the National Association for Home Care’s (NAHC; Washington) board, testified at two Senate hearings recently about the damage caused to home health agencies by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and increased regulations. The hearings were held before the finance committee and the Government Affairs Committee Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). During the PSI hearing, Suther talked about how the changes will ultimately affect patients. "NAHC has received reports from home care providers, beneficiaries, and from the media throughout the nation that have showcased individual cases where access to care has become a serious problem," Suther said. In addition, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA; Baltimore) is requiring that agencies report all home health visits in 15-minute increments, cooperate with the implementation of OASIS, increase medical claims reviews and sequential billing, and expand compliance surveys. These requirements are placing undue financial and operational burdens on agencies, Suther testified.
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