Government Watchdogs Increasingly Targeting Home Care Agencies

The next year will be a big one for home care. There will be increased opportunities for agencies with a larger national spotlight shone on them.  Meanwhile, there are both legal threats and advocacy efforts that should be top of everyone’s mind, Home Care Association of America (HCAOA) CEO Vicki Hoak said during Home Care Pulse’s […]

Top Home Care Predictions for 2022

The personal home care industry has received unprecedented recognition and praise over the last two years. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris explicitly mentioned home care – and home care workers – on the campaign trail and after inauguration. “Just the fact that a sitting president is talking about home care is huge,” […]

CMS Solidifies Vaccination Deadlines, Releases Guidance for Home Health Agencies

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday threw its support behind the nationwide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, while simultaneously axing a vaccine-or-test rule for large employers. Last week’s developments shouldn’t shock the in-home care operators that have been following the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Occupational Safety and Health […]

DOL Oversight Ramping Up, But Home Care Industry ‘Still a Little Behind’ on Compliance

Home-based care providers have had to deal with an uncertain legal and regulatory environment for almost two years at this point. It’s created bottom-line challenges as well as workplace ones. Cheryl Stanton, the chief legal and government affairs officer at BrightStar Care, experienced this first hand when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) […]

Supreme Court Keeps NY Vaccine Mandate Alive. Here’s What Home Health Providers Should Know.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to block New York state’s requirement that health care workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19. For home-based care providers, the move is unlikely to change much for now – either in New York or elsewhere. A similar challenge in the state of Maine had previously reached the Supreme Court, […]

‘It’s Now for the Wealthy’: Regulation Creating Cost Barriers for Live-In Home Care Services

In 2013, the Obama administration included live-in caregivers in U.S. wage and overtime law. Previously, those caregivers – along with salaried workers – had been exempt from overtime provisions. The administration’s goal at the time was to raise caregiver wages. That has certainly happened, albeit in a small number of cases. Mostly, though, the Obama-era […]

‘Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst’: How Providers Should Plan Around the CMS Mandate Freeze

The initial health care worker vaccine mandate laid out by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was a cause for confusion for some home health providers when it was announced officially in early November. Now that a nationwide injunction has been issued by a federal judge with key deadlines rapidly approaching, that confusion […]

Home-Based Care Providers Face Major Losses Ahead of Vaccine Mandates

Home-based care agencies all across the country are racing toward – or already moved past – effective dates of vaccine mandates in their respective areas. And as they continue staff-education efforts internally while following outside legal challenges to mandates, providers are struggling to keep workers who refuse to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. “We […]