This story was provided to HomeCare by KFF News.
BOULDER, Colorado—Ilyse Streim views massage for people in hospice care as “whispering to the body through touch.”
“It’s much lighter work. It’s nurturing. It’s slow,” said Streim, a licensed massage therapist.
Due to labor shortages, veterans in Florida, Alabama and across the country are struggling to find at-home health care providers. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has chosen to exclude nurse registries in the Community Care Network (CCN), which would qualify these caregivers for reimbursement. The VA’s arbitrary decision to exclude nurse registries only exacerbates the existing labor shortage in this critical field.
MONTEBELLO, New York—Empeon, a human capital management (HCM) platform for health systems, announced its partnership with showd.me, a compliance and training partner for homecare agencies and skilled nursing facilities. The two software providers are joining forces and aiming to equip the health care industry with a robust technology stack to help combat the current employee retention crisis in healthcare staffing.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee—National Seating & Mobility (NSM), North America’s largest provider of comprehensive mobility solutions, has selected Gregg Meheriuk to serve as senior vice president of new business and strategy. As a member of NSM’s executive leadership team, Meheriuk’s work will include leading the company’s new business strategy and the Home Accessibility and Canada divisions.
MINNEAPOLIS—Inbound Health, a company that enables health systems and health plans to offer hospital-at-home and skilled nursing-at-home programs, announced it has expanded its Home Hospital Care program to include general surgery, including orthopedics, bariatrics and hernia. This expansion builds upon the company's in hospital and skilled nursing-at-home care.
A new study produced by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) highlights the potential for telehealth to make care more accessible while providing similar levels of service to traditional, in-person ways of delivering care. Telehealth is the use of electronic or telecommunications technology to access health care remotely.
CHICAGO—Oak Street Health, a network of value-based primary care centers for adults on Medicare, announced plans to open centers in Little Rock, Arkansas; Des Moines and Davenport, Iowa; Kansas City, Kansas and Richmond, Virginia, beginning this summer. The expansion into these four new states will mark the 25th state in which Oak Street Health serves older adults.
PHILADELPHIA—A federal court has ordered a Philadelphia homecare agency and its owner to pay more than $7 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 1,230 current and former employees after two years of litigation affirmed the U.S. Department of Labor’s finding that the employers willfully failed to pay overtime wages, in most cases by not including employees’ time for work-related travel when calculating wages.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina—Deeana Burr, 54, of Charleston, South Carolina, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
TROY, Michigan—ComForCare, a franchised provider of in-home caregiving services, forged an exclusive partnership with
