Home Care Industry News

In the national media spotlight, it appears that there are numerous challenges facing the home care industry. While it remains the number one job creator thanks to increasing demand because more seniors prefer to remain at home, even when they need assistance, and the Baby Boomer generation now retiring, relatively lower wages and other issues create a significant amount of negative press.

Language barriers within the in home care sector don’t receive a great deal of attention, but according to a recent study by NYU and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, it’s something to discuss. According to a news publication regarding this topic by NYU, one in five households throughout the United States speaks a language other than English within the home (there was no documentable evidence provided for this claim in the news publication, though).

California continues to grapple with extreme budget constraints and in recent months the state level passed off a large portion of in home care financial responsibility to the county level. While that has certainly done a lot to help with the state’s part of the budget, it’s leaving many counties struggling to determine how they can cover this increased level of expense.

It’s not always easy to understand what the average person thinks about specific topics, especially when there aren’t a wide range of research studies supporting opinions. When it comes to the home care industry, even though it’s clear that more people would prefer to be at home if they needed extra care, they may not have the right perceptions about the industry as a whole.

Ron Gold was a Wall Street executive who has been through quite a lot and when he and a friend were riding bicycles together and were hit by someone who had fallen asleep at the wheel, it was going to be many months working toward recovery. For Ron Gold, though, recovery meant spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Currently, Massachusetts’ home health care aides and other workers are demanding action within the state legislature to increase reimbursement rates for the services these men and women provide. Currently, home care aides earn $13.05 per hour, on average and many are saying this isn’t enough for the high demands of the job.

The Los Angeles city attorney filed a suit recently claiming a home health care agency has been stealing money from its workers and violating minimum wage and overtime laws. The suit claims that Health Alliance Nurses Corp. and Hand Homecare Provider Inc., which employs more than 200 people, many of whom are Filipino immigrants, has not been paying its workers minimum wage or provided them overtime pay that was earned.

As this country heads into what some may call a potential crisis with regard to senior care, more seniors and their adult children or other support systems admit they would prefer to remain at home. It’s not just an aging population that wishes to remain within the comfort of their home, even if they have difficulty with some basic tasks, but their loved ones, men and women who may be directly responsible for assisting them if and when that time comes.

For Immediate Release HCAF’s 28th Annual Conference and Trade Show will be held July 23-27 at Renaissance at SeaWorld Orlando.  This year’s conference theme is “Reflect. Reset. Renew.” Valerie will be speaking on Wednesday July 26th at 4pm. Her presentation title is “Online Marketing for Home Care Agencies in 2017 Leads, Visibility, Authority” Agenda Items…