Home health agencies continued to make a major contribution to the U.S. economy last year, despite the harsh headwinds brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, home health agencies contributed toward 1.49 million jobs in 2020, according to the most recent Home Health Chartbook, released annually by the Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation (AHHQI) in collaboration with Avalere.
While agencies had a significant impact on the U.S. job market last year, it wasn’t as pronounced as 2018 and 2019. In those two years, home health agencies contributed to 1.5 million jobs and 1.54 million jobs, respectively.
To some extent, the job losses suffered by the home health industry could have been related to clinicians and staff exiting the workforce due to COVID-induced burnout or other challenges. Workforce shortages have increasingly become problematic for most providers, particularly on the nursing side.
“The workforce shortage is not a new crisis,” David Totaro, the chief government affairs officer of the Moorestown, New Jersey-based Bayada Home Health Care, said in August. “It’s been decades in the making. However, from the beginning of the pandemic until now, Bayada has seen an unprecedented increase in the caregiver staffing shortage in New Jersey.”
In order, New York, Texas, California and Florida had the most home health employees in 2020.
In terms of wages, AHHQI and Avalere estimate that home health agencies across the U.S. paid $52.34 billion in total wages in 2020. The estimated impact of home health payroll on labor income that year was $82.04 billion.
Meanwhile, estimated home health expenditures in 2020 were $53.49 billion. The estimated impact on home health spending on output was $112.57 billion.
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