Home Health & Hospice Week

The way your agency furnishes home care aides could change drastically if new legislation on the matter succeeds.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) have introduced the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act, which would eliminate the companionship exemption to the Fair LaborStandards Act wage and overtime laws for home care workers. Currently, certain aides are exempt from FLSA minimum wage and overtime requirements due to the provision.

Last year Sanchez spearheaded a letter from 15 Democratic senators urging Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to exclude the exemption for "professional" caretakers -- aides employed by a home health agency. The Obama administration indicated a willingness to look into the matter, but no further changes have come about.

The exemption has been a hot button issue for unions in recent years. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the exemption for aides employed by third parties, including HHAs (see Eli's HCW Vol. XVI, No. 22, p. 162). The new legislation addresses the exemption's "injustice," Sanchez says in a release.

"Most direct care workers receive low wages, little or no benefits and insufficient training and professional development," Casey says in a separate release. "As a result, there are high turnover rates that can compromise the quality of care our older citizens and people with disabilities deserve."

However, eliminating the companionship exemption would have the opposite effect, industry experts predict. Because clients won't want to pay for overtime, it will force aides to work for multiple agencies to make up their hours, limiting aides' incomes and disrupting continuity of care for clients (see Eli's HCW, Vol., XVIII, No. 22, p. 170).