Estimated Cost to Comply with Companionship Exemption Rule (2.0) |
LeadingAge New York, the Home Care Association of NYS and the NY State Association of Health Care Providers are asking you to complete the following brief survey to help determine the potential fiscal impact of new federal wage and hour requirements on your agency. As this new rule has the potential to increase the labor and administrative costs of agencies, and affect the workforce and patient care, your participation in the survey is most critical and will help better inform and support association advocacy efforts on your behalf.
Your responses will be kept strictly confidential; only aggregate data will be used in any advocacy, including working for additional Medicaid funding for home care providers, managed care plans and workers.
Background on New Rule
On August 21, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals upheld the final rule extending the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime provisions to home care workers (which had long been exempted due to concerns for adverse impact on patient care and accessibility of service).
Provisions/Implications of Rule Change
• Minimum Wage and Overtime Requirements - Pending further appeals, it requires home care agencies and third party employers to pay at least the federal minimum wage and overtime to home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants. (In New York State, home care agencies are already required to compensate aides at least the minimum wage and overtime.)
• Requires Overtime based on Actual Wage - The rule requires overtime pay based on the aide's actual wage or base wage, not minimum wage (which includes travel time between cases when an aide is under the employ of a single employer for the cases).
• Calculation of Hours & Compensation - The aide working on a “live-in”/”sleep-in” case must be paid a minimum of 13 hours provided she/he gets at least 8 hours of sleep time (5 of which must be uninterrupted) plus three hours for meals*. For meal time to be uncompensated, the aide must be given an hour of free time in which she may choose to eat or engage in other non-work activities. If the aide is required to assist her client during meal time, she must be paid for that period.
(*Please note that this is referencing a federal rule; there are currently separate lawsuits progressing at the State level related to payment for "live-in"/"sleep-in" cases.)
• New Recordkeeping Requirements - The rule also requires new record-keeping requirements for agencies employing "live-in" staff to track their actual hours worked, meal time, and sleep time.
The following questions apply to all your home care programs in fee-for-service and managed care Medicaid, including consumer directed services, Nursing Home Transition and Diversion, Traumatic Brain Injury and other waivers.
Your responses will be kept strictly confidential; only aggregate data will be used in any advocacy, including working for additional Medicaid funding for home care providers, managed care plans and workers.
Background on New Rule
On August 21, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals upheld the final rule extending the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime provisions to home care workers (which had long been exempted due to concerns for adverse impact on patient care and accessibility of service).
Provisions/Implications of Rule Change
• Minimum Wage and Overtime Requirements - Pending further appeals, it requires home care agencies and third party employers to pay at least the federal minimum wage and overtime to home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants. (In New York State, home care agencies are already required to compensate aides at least the minimum wage and overtime.)
• Requires Overtime based on Actual Wage - The rule requires overtime pay based on the aide's actual wage or base wage, not minimum wage (which includes travel time between cases when an aide is under the employ of a single employer for the cases).
• Calculation of Hours & Compensation - The aide working on a “live-in”/”sleep-in” case must be paid a minimum of 13 hours provided she/he gets at least 8 hours of sleep time (5 of which must be uninterrupted) plus three hours for meals*. For meal time to be uncompensated, the aide must be given an hour of free time in which she may choose to eat or engage in other non-work activities. If the aide is required to assist her client during meal time, she must be paid for that period.
(*Please note that this is referencing a federal rule; there are currently separate lawsuits progressing at the State level related to payment for "live-in"/"sleep-in" cases.)
• New Recordkeeping Requirements - The rule also requires new record-keeping requirements for agencies employing "live-in" staff to track their actual hours worked, meal time, and sleep time.
The following questions apply to all your home care programs in fee-for-service and managed care Medicaid, including consumer directed services, Nursing Home Transition and Diversion, Traumatic Brain Injury and other waivers.