Home Health & Hospice Week

A better year for home health agencies meant a better year for HHA executives, shows a new salary survey. Home care executive directors and chief executive officers' base median salaries increased 10.65 percent from 2002 to 2003, says the Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service in Oakland, NJ. That is compared to only a 4.6 percent increase in 2002, according to the company's new 2003-2004 HOMECARE Salary and Benefits Report, published in cooperation with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. But management employees saw smaller increases than last year - 3.98 percent versus 4.22 percent. Registered nurses' increase was 4.28 percent, HCS says. Executive directors of "voluntary" home care organizations had a median salary of $133,250; private FNP $87,200; for-profit $67,019; and hospital-based $89,824, HCS reports. To purchase HCS' salary report, which covers 72 jobs, go to www.hhcsinc.com. Meanwhile, trade association Associated Home Health Industries of Florida reports Florida home care nurses saw a 1.9 percent increase from 2002 to 2003 for per-visit payment and a 10.4 percent increase for salary or hourly positions. The statewide per-visit average for the 101 agencies that responded to AHHIF's salary survey was $28.19 per visit and $22.83 per hour, AHHIF says. That trend could mean HHAs are hiring more staff on a salary basis to build agency loyalty, or that increased volume cancels out the slower rate of increase for per-visit pay rates, AHHIF speculates. To purchase AHHIF's report, which also covers aide and billing/clerical worker pay rates, go to www.ahhif.org/03ssorderform.html. House and Senate lawmakers began hammering out the details of compromise legislation provisions regarding home health services and durable medical equipment this week, but the outcome for an overall Medicare bill is still unclear. Reps. John Peterson (R-PA) and Jim McGovern (D-MA), co-chairs of the House's Home Health Working Group, sent a letter Sept. 17 to the legislators working on the compromise bill, reports the American Association for Homecare. The letter urges the conferees to reject a home health copayment, saying "we are strongly concerned about the potential negative impacts caused by any increase in direct costs for home health beneficiaries." Free HIPAA help is available from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in a Sept. 25 HIPAA conference call from 2 to 3:30 p.m. ET. Providers can participate in the call, which will focus on electronic transaction and code set standards, by dialing 1-877-381-6315 with conference ID number 1596442 15 minutes before the teleconference begins. The home care industry may be able to borrow a page from nursing homes' playbooks to recruit and retain workers. A broad array of professionals and health care groups has come together to form the national Commission on Nursing Workforce for Long [...]