Home Health & Hospice Week

The home care industry is having to fight another charge threatening its reputation. Once again, the USA Today newspaper takes the industry to task for opposing the Obama administration's efforts to eliminate the companionship exemption for home care aides.

A new report from the Franchise Business Review lists home health care as one of the top five most profitable franchises in the U.S., the newspaper says, "even as the industry fights new Depart-ment of Labor rules calling for mandatory overtime and minimum wage requirements for home health employees."

"I find it really hard to reconcile that one of the most profitable sectors is pinching pennies when it comes to workers," Dorie Seavey of the Para-professional Healthcare Institute told the paper.

Revenue growth for private duty agencies has gone down since 2009, Sheila McMackin of the National Private Duty Association told the USA Today. And eliminating the companionship exemption means some seniors won't be able to afford care, she said.