Regional Digest
Regional Digest
• Camcare (Lewisburg, SC), the parent company of Charleston Area Medical Center, will sell its home medical equipment business to Home Health Care Services. The sale is expected to take place by the end of the year, the company told the Charleston Gazette. The company did not disclose a purchase price. The sale is the latest in a series of cuts for Camcare, reported the Gazette. Camcare lost more than $56 million last year, and company officials have blamed many of their financial problems on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
• National Mentor (Boston) has closed on three acquisitions totaling $3.7 million in revenues, including one of home care provider Gilmore Home Health Care (Roswell, NM). The partnerships are the latest in a series of acquisitions planned by Mentor in coming months, the company said. Gilmore has annual revenues of $650,000.
• Nearly 200 registered nurses at the Visiting Nurses Association of Boston have said they will go on strike Dec. 10 unless they get a new contract, reported the Associated Press. The nurses filed their 10-day intervention to strike on Monday, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents the nurses. According to the AP, the 188 nurses have been negotiating with the VNA of Boston, the state’s largest home care agency, since August. The nurses object to a VNA proposal to cut their salaries by 7% and want the agency to make concessions over seniority, weekend work assignments, and a cost-of-living increase.
• Canadians are paying an average of $283 a week out of their own pockets for home care to supplement underfinanced and overburdened public programs, according to a study recently conducted by We Care Health Services, Canada’s largest private home care provider. Clients are paying for about 25% of home nursing services and 60% of support services, such as homemaking and personal care, the study found. The agency said that most people assume that because Canada has a public healthcare system they will be taken care of and give little thought to the financial and emotional burden of caring for a loved one. Another study conducted in Canada, though, found that governments can cut costs for elderly patients by as much as half by providing care in the community rather than in institutions. Home care saves the healthcare system money regardless of the severity of patients’ conditions, as long as they are stable, researchers found. It is only when patients are unstable and move frequently from home to hospital that it is more efficient to keep them in an extended care facility, according to the study. The researchers said that the message for governments is not only that home care is a good investment, but that there is a need to focus on services and programs that keep clients stable and at home.
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