Current Challenges in the Home Care Industry

“STAFFING CHALLENGES IN THE DIRECT CARE INDUSTRY ARE NOT JUST LOCAL, BUT NATIONWIDE.”

Staffing challenges in the direct care industry are not just local, but nationwide. This stems from the fact that our national unemployment rate and the unemployment rate in Indiana are both very low. So when we have around a 3% unemployment rate, we have to assume that this 3% of the population is not fully employable, because it is never going to reach 100% employment. There will always be factors such as disabilities, incompatibility, failed background checks, or missing requirements that can prevent a potential employee from being employed at your company.

In-depth background checks and vetting are so important for hiring trustworthy employees, but this also limits the number of people who are able to be hired. Passing a background check is the first step in ensuring quality caregivers for any home care organization. Possession of a driver’s license and a dependable vehicle are also requirements for being a caregiver, as well as hourly availability. Due to these factors, the available selection of employees can be very thin.

Another major challenge within our industry are the regulatory standards that are consistently added to our plate by the federal and state governments. One current example is the Century 21 Act. This act states that any agency providing a Medicaid waiver program must now have an electronic visit verification platform for their employees meaning our employees will have GPS systems with them while on the field.

Through this EVV technology, they can ping their location, report the tasks they have performed, and clock in and out of their shifts. This information is then sent to the state for billing purposes. This is a statewide act that has made agencies change their software scheduling to comply. The new platform requires caregiver training and provides them with a smart device such as a phone or tablet. This act is statewide and is drastically changing agencies’ overall structure, causing them to embrace a new way of doing things.