Regional Digest
July 19, 1999 4 minutes read
Regional Digest
• Chesapeake Rehab Equipment (Baltimore, MD), in an effort to expand its operations, has acquired Rehab Connection. With this acquisition, Rehab Connection will change its name to Chesapeake Rehab Equipment and will operate as a satellite location from Upper Darby, PA. Like Chesapeake, Rehab Connection specializes in customized durable medical equipment.
• About 1,800 home care workers in Arkansas have been given raises to bring their salaries in line with clinic employees doing similar work. The raises follow a home health rally at the state Capitol that enlisted the support of state legislators, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The raises, which average 11%, range from 10% at the bottom end of the pay scale to 27% for higher paid employees, the Gazette reported.
• The Melrose Visiting Nurse Service, citing the reason as Medicare budget cuts, will merge with the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston. The merger, four years in the making, will allow VNA of Boston to become larger and better able to withstand the effects of Medicare cutbacks, Joanne Handy, VNA of Boston president, told the Boston Herald. VNA of Boston plans to hire all of Melrose’s clinical and support staff. Nurses who choose to stay with the agency will see the same patients as they did before the merger. The Melrose agency, now known as the Melrose VNS, a division of the VNA of Boston, operates out of the Melrose agency’s office.
• Wanda’s Elder Care (Little Rock, AR) has apparently closed, leaving patients without care and employees without work. The Associated Press reported that employees of the in-home care service told Little Rock television station KTHV that they cannot find owner Wanda Irwin. The phone lines at both locations are disconnected, the AP reported. Since the business is not a state licensed health agency, the Health Department can’t help. And the situation does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services, reported the AP. Employees of the agency and families using the agency, who have pre-paid for services, have been referred to small claims court to try and get their money back.
• New legislation in California, expected to take effect in January, would designate counties, or a home health agency chosen by the county, as the employer of record for an estimated 200,000 home care workers in the state, reported the San Diego Union-Tribune. Presently, a home care worker is the employee of record of the patient. The state pays the workers’ salaries, but no one wants to be their employer, the Union-Tribune reported. The legislation is awaiting the governor’s signature. The Union-Tribune reported that it’s a watershed event for home care workers who have been struggling for two decades to be recognized as someone’s employees.
• Camcare Inc.’s Strategic Health Services (Charleston, WV) lost its corporate director as Mary Linn Hamilton resigned. Hamilton is only the most recent of several high level departures at the hospital corporation, reported the Charleston Daily Mail. Hamilton oversaw all functions of the home health division of Strategic Health.
• Rhode Island prosecutors have charged Crown Medical Services (Providence, RI), a home health company, and two of its corporate officers with 161 counts of Medicaid fraud. The alleged offenses include billing the state for services provided to dead clients, reported the Providence Journal. The charges claim that the two officers, Clement Ojo and Clement Ilori, filed fraudulent claims to the state’s program billing the state for $19,683 in services between August 1995 and summer of 1998 that were never performed. A week earlier, state prosecutors charged two home healthcare administrators, Carol Bernardo and Sheila Mancini, of American Family Home Care with 96 counts Medicaid fraud.
• A doctor and his associates have launched Patients First (Norwell, MA), a new home healthcare service to care for injured and ill people at their houses. "I want to improve the quality of their lives," said Dr. Jay Portnow, founder and medical director of the company. "Recovery and adjustment are difficult times. It doesn’t do a patient any good to do well in the hospital and then fail at home. It’s high time doctors and patients work together to optimize all aspects of health. And the best place to do that is at the patient’s residence."
• The head of All Cape Health Care and All Cape Health Care Certified in Bourne, MA, must serve two years of probation and pay more than $123,000 in restitution for failing to pay wages to 37 employees and pocketing their insurance premiums, reported the Boston Herald. Scott Farrell, president of both companies, was sentenced last week after he plead guilty to larceny and failure to pay wages, unemployment contributions, and workers’ compensation insurance.
• Social workers in Washington are planning to work long hours in order to conduct 5,000 additional home visits, a precaution for neglect or physical abuse of patients. The visits follow the recent news of a 59-year-old man who beat and neglected his 50-year-old wife for several years, even thought the state continuously gave him money to care for her. The visits will target clients who live with their care providers and who haven’t been visited in two months or more, reported the Seattle Times. The review, scheduled for completion by September, will cost about $1.1 million. About 12,000 of the 23,000 adults in home care programs funded by the state are cared for by relatives or other individuals. The rest are served by agencies.
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