Home Care Daily - National Home Care Industry News

For those within the home care industry, it’s no surprise that quality of care is often reported as being much higher with these options than for men and women relegated to nursing home care. However, the conditions of nursing homes, as egregious as it’s been through the years, may still have been overstated. It’s one more reason why agencies and other home care providers need to reach out to their communities and inform residents of the true value they offer.

A woman in Connecticut is facing a slew of charges alleging that she took advantage of an elderly client when she was hired to be her home health aide. Authorities were not clear on whether Divona Johnson was a certified aide, but she is charged with stealing over $2,100 from her unnamed client through a series of fraudulent charges on her debit card.

Medical professionals routinely state that a person’s health is determine not just by what they do (diet, exercise, etc.), but how and where they live. In fact, according to Dr. Megan Sandel, a leader of Boston Medical Center’s housing initiative, “Only about 10 to 20 percent of health is actually determined by what type of health care you get.”

It’s no surprise, or secret, now that hospitals have been under increasing pressure to reduce readmission rates. For nearly a decade, the federal government, through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has been forcing these medical practices to reevaluate the level of post-discharge care and support they offer patients in order to improve recovery.

The U.S. Department of Justice is labeling a recent arrest as being involved in the largest health care frauds in the history of the country. Nehaj Rizvi was arrested recently in relation to her part of a home health care fraud scheme that bilked the government out of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding.

Combating infection is one of the critical issues hospitals and doctor clinics face across the country. Within these organizations, there’s extensive focus placed on proper training and policy to ensure everyone who may come in contact with a patient practices appropriate protocol to limit (minimize) the potential spread of an infection. What has often been overlooked at times, though, when it comes to infection control has been in how home health care nurses deal with these same issues.

It’s rarely a time when people are in a ‘good place’ emotionally when they begin searching for in home health care services. In most cases, an emergency has arisen in which a loved one -be it a spouse, aging parent, or possibly even a sibling- needs care at home before the search for proper support begins.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck a major blow to public unions last week when it decided in favor of a plaintiff who had argued he shouldn’t be forced to pay union dues. The decision had been expected and many local unions had been fervently working with some state legislators to try and counter the short and long-term ramifications of the decision, but the Supreme Court also advised a lower court in Illinois to review whether the union there should reimburse $32 million to individuals who had dues taken out automatically from government paychecks while they cared for family or others as in home care providers.

When the federal government began placing increased pressure on hospitals to reduce their readmission rates, many said it was impossible. Some in what are considered poorer neighborhoods claimed that it would run them out of business, as their patients didn’t have the ability or resources to avoid a return trip to the hospital.