7 Personas of a Caregiver Webinar and Study

Wednesday, November 30th (1:00 p.m.) 

Webinar Title: 2022 National Personal Care Workforce Data Study

Webinar Description: Join us for the unveiling of a new data study, conducted by NAHC and MissionCare Collective. In partnership with one of the world’s largest data companies, we’ve evaluated 65K+ personal care workers across more than 90 data sources. The analysis includes identification of seven personas of today’s worker and key motivations and drivers to recruit, engage, and retain caregiver talent. All attendees will receive a copy of the full report.

Speaker Bio: 

Maggie Keen is a nationally recognized expert on healthcare recruitment, retention, and motivation. She's spent the last 8 years consulting with top healthcare organizations and serves as Vice President of MissionCare Collective. Maggie regularly speaks at leading industry events across the nation, inspiring audiences to rethink their recruitment strategy. Her unique insights stem from her team's front-row seat into the complexities and challenges of the front-line labor market. Maggie’s mission is to change the culture of care, to bring meaning and purpose to care careers, and to imagine a world where both care workers are more inspired and patients get the care they need.

Registration Link: https://www.missioncare.com/webinar-workforce-nm-ut-co

Informal Caregiver Hours On The Rise, Highlighting Need For Home Care, Respite Services

Home Health Care News | By Joyce Famakinwa

More individuals are having to take on what’s known as the second or third shift — caregiving duties in addition to being employed.
 
At the same time, there has been an increase in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans offering home-based care, including respite services, coinciding with this rise of informal caregivers.
 
For context, informal caregivers are spouses, partners, friends or family members who assist with activities of daily living (ADLs) and possibly even medical tasks, according to San Francisco-based nonprofit Family Caregiver Alliance.
 
A new survey from Homethrive found that there has been a 151% increase in the number of employees spending more than 9 work hours weekly on caregiving compared to its last survey in 2021.
 
Homethrive’s survey examines how informal caregivers are balancing work life and their additional caregiving responsibilities. Two hundred informal caregivers — working in a variety of industries in the U.S. — were surveyed for the report.
 
“Unpaid family caregivers are unsung heroes,” Bonni Kaplan DeWoskin, vice president of marketing at Homethrive, said in a statement. “Our second annual ‘Employee Caregiving Survey’ reveals their workloads show no signs of letting up, and this underserved, yet growing population, is demanding help from their employers; they’re willing to leave their jobs unless they get it.”
 
The survey also found that there’s been a 79% increase in the number of employees spending more than five hours weekly on caregiving compared to last year.
 
The types of caregiving responsibilities that the survey respondents were taking on included grocery shopping, driving to doctor’s appointments or other services, housekeeping tasks, arranging or preparing meals and assisting with medications.
 
Additionally, more than a third of respondents either left work early, missed work days or had to change their work schedule to accommodate their caregiving duties.
 
Over half of respondents said they are concerned about the negative impact caregiving will have on their job performance.
 
In addition to those findings, surveyed individuals also expressed an interest in switching jobs if it would give them access to caregiving-coordination benefits, as two-thirds of respondents said they currently don’t have access to a caregiving support benefit.
 
Home care operators should view the Homethrive survey results as another proof point for their services. Professional caregivers can help family members care for loved ones and focus on their careers.

Read Full Article

Hospice is for the Patient AND the Family

By Barbara Karnes

Dear Barbara, My husband was diagnosed with dementia. He has been under hospice care for over 2 years in a residential care home and has now entered EOL stage. Our hospice “service” in AZ focus solely on providing for the needs of my husband so I’m looking for resources to support me and our son.

I responded to this woman but feel led to address “our hospice service in AZ focus solely on providing to the needs of my husband” with anyone who will listen.

My hope is this woman fell through the cracks or misunderstood “hospice service focuses solely” on the needs of the patient. For the record, Hospice service very much focuses on the family and primary caregiver. When in a nursing facility, then their service also includes the staff of the nursing facility.

As I type this, the thought occurs to me that the hospice is considering the staff the primary caregiver and not including the family as part of care. Surely not!! Tell me that isn’t true!!!!

From the very beginning of hospice care in this country, before there was reimbursement and regulations, the plan of care ALWAYS included the family and primary care person. When the Medicare regulations were written family was specifically included. Why would we have bereavement follow-up and support written into the regulations and plan of care if it were not addressing the needs of the family?

90% of end of life care is about education. Education of the signs of approaching death and what to do as it approaches for THE FAMILY AND CAREGIVER. 

Dying is not a medical event. It is a social, communal event. Dying is not a time for procedures or medications. It is time for support, guidance and reassurance FOR THE FAMILY. 

These phrases I’ve said, (actually shouted from the rooftops) for years, 43 years to be exact. These sentences are the essence of end of life care, the essence of hospice care FOR THE FAMILY AND CAREGIVER. Hospice is very much about the patient and family. The patient we keep comfortable and the family we support, guide, and reassure.

Is CMS’ Proposed Home Health Rate Cut Legal? Other Court Decisions Suggest No

Home Health Care News / By Andrew Donlan
 
The entire home health industry is anxiously awaiting the release of the final payment rule for 2023, which should be released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at some point over the next two weeks.
 
The anxiousness is due to the home health proposed payment rule, which included a 4.2% aggregate decrease in payments – or $810 million – and an avenue for future CMS clawbacks of perceived overpayments to providers.
 
Industry leaders and stakeholders have advocated against those cuts relentlessly over the past few months. They’ve also tried to gain traction on legislation, namely through the Preserving Access to Home Health Act, which was introduced in both the Senate and House in the summer. The final route to avoid payment cuts would be through legal action, though multiple sources have told Home Health Care News in the past that they’d like to avoid that at all costs.
 
However, if they did decide to go that route, there is recent and mounting legal precedent to suggest that the courts would side with the home health industry and against CMS and its ability to make as drastic cuts as the ones put forth in this year’s proposed rule.
 
Multiple sources have also told HHCN that the following could be the under-the-radar tool that could save the home health industry from cuts, either now or later.
 
Prior to 2020, CMS proposed a series of policy changes for hospitals, one of which would have reduced payment for hospitals, specifically through the 340B drug pricing program. Broadly, 340B hospitals are generally those that serve lower-income or rural populations.
 
Those cuts represented an about $1.6 billion impact on those 340B hospitals annually.
 
That impact won’t be felt moving forward, though, because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against CMS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – and thus, against the rate cuts – in American Hospital Association (AHA) v. Becerra on June 15. 
 
In the hospitals’ case, they were going to see a significant and disruptive cut to reimbursement that they believed would hurt patient care. The same goes for home health providers and their looming potential cuts. Both believe CMS is not statutorily able to cut payments in the ways in which they did, or could be. In AHA’s case, they were ruled correct by the court.

Read Full Article