Regional Digest
Regional Digest
• Volusia County, FL, investigators are looking for two women who posed as home healthcare workers, then robbed a 79-year-old DeLand man of $400. The first woman entered the man’s home in January, weighing him and telling him to empty his pockets and disrobe. She left the house for medical equipment in her car, but never returned. In February, another woman targeted the same man, reported the Orlando Sentinel. She fled when he refused to give up his wallet.
• A man paralyzed while playing in a Boston University hockey game is suing a New Hampshire insurance carrier for refusing to pay for his home health aides. The care enables the man to live independently. North American Specialty Insurance (Manchester, NH) sold a policy to the NCAA to cover injuries to college athletes, but it caps reimbursement of home healthcare at $100,000 per year unless the care is "medically advised." Travis Roy was paralyzed from the neck down in October 1995 after he crashed head first into the boards.
• Community Hospitals Indianapolis, which operates four hospitals, nursing homes, and a home healthcare agency, is creating a new business unit that would share services between administrative positions. Administrators not transferred to the new unit will receive other jobs in the network. Some could be laid off, but only as a last resort, the hospital told The Indianapolis Star and News.
• Sharp Home Care (San Diego) has been found to have deficiencies that threaten patients, according to federal audits, reported the San Diego Union-Tribune. Twice in the last year, inspectors have found the treatment of MediCal, Medicare, and private-pay patients was out of compliance with a number of federal standards. Nursing and therapy assistance was flawed or not provided, medication errors were made, agency administration was inadequate, and there were significant problems with care for the severely disabled patients, including a quadriplegic and respirator-dependent patient, audit reports said. Sharp officials said they are correcting all identified deficiencies and disputing a number of findings as either documentation or computer-related problems. A third inspection planned for the near future will determine if Sharp can continue to provide home care to patients whose insurance is provided by the government.
• Los Angeles County home care workers voted last week nearly 10-1 to join the Service Employees International Union, according to a count released by state mediation officials, reported the Los Angeles Times. The vote, which ends a decade-long drive, adds an estimated 74,000 low-wage workers to the union umbrella in Los Angeles, the Times reported. The mail-in vote follows a decade long organizing drive by the Service Employees International Union that will significantly boost labor’s share of public employees in Los Angeles. It also will give home care workers the kind of bargaining power that has helped others in California win pay raises and benefits such as health insurance and bus passes. Advocates for the workers and the elderly, the Times reported, said the union vote is part of a move toward standardizing and improving home care services, which are likely to become increasingly prevalent as the California population ages.
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