Regional Digest
Regional Digest
• Visiting Home Care (Santa Rosa, CA) has shut down after nearly 20 years in business. The agency provided in-home personal care and housekeeping services. The agency blamed the closing on too much competition from high-tech businesses that pay better wages and offer better benefits, reported the the Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, CA. The agency also cited too little support from the government, too much competition with other nonprofits for funding, and increasingly higher workers’ compensation premiums. About 100 elderly patients of Visiting Home Care have been picked up by other agencies, the Press Democrat reported.
• More than 700 elderly and disabled patients would not be eligible for home care because of changes the House made to Colorado’s $12.5 billion budget proposal, state senators were told last week. Republican senators argued against the House amendment that shifted $6.4 out of client service and earmarked the money to cover rate increases for home care and providers of alternative care, reported the Denver Rocky Mountain News. Senators said the state needs to cut soaring Medicare costs, but warned that cutting clients is not the way to go, the Rocky Mountain News reported.
• Tennessee has dropped to last in the nation in providing alternatives to nursing home care, and advocates for the elderly hope that rank will pressure lawmakers into funding $16 million for community and home care. Mississippi had ranked last, and the state this year will begin a $23 million program that expands home care statewide, the state Medicaid director told the Tennessean. The proposed program for Tennessee has bipartisan support, but passage will be difficult because of the state’s financial crisis, the Tennessean reported.
• VNA Systems (Syracuse, NY) will affiliate with Crouse Hospital and Community-General Hospital. VNA Systems is the parent company of the Visiting Nurse Association of Central New York, a nonprofit home care agency that primarily serves Medicare patients, and Independent Health Care Services, a for-profit agency that serves patients covered by Medicaid and private insurers. The two agencies serve 5,500 patients annually, reported the Post-Standard of Syracuse, NY. The affiliation, VNA said, is not a merger and will not significantly change the way VNA operates. The deal also will not have a significant effect on the company’s more than 500 employees, VNA told the Post-Standard. By partnering with a larger organization, VNA will have access to technology that will allow it to start an electronic medical record system and take advantage of a broad array of educational programs for its staff, VNA said.
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