In-Home Care Faces Rising Gas Prices, Budget Cuts
This is scary: Too Remote For Care? In-Home Care Faces Rising Gas Prices, Budget Cuts:
A combination of rising costs, particularly for fuel, and declining compensation from Medicare has forced some care centers across the country to cut back on staff and services and others to close their doors completely.
A study released by the National Association for Home Care & Hospice’s (NAHC) Foundation for Hospice and Homecare has documented that:
Nurses, therapists and home care aides who serve chronically ill elderly and disabled patients drive nearly 5 billion miles each year and that escalating gasoline prices are threatening their ability to reach patients, particularly in rural areas.
In order to address these issues, the study recommends a variety of measures including a percent rural add on (from Medicare reimbursement) for home health services delivered to patients in rural areas and exempt home health agencies, hospices and their nurses and therapists from paying Federal gasoline taxes.
Combine these factors with a nursing shortage and it sure looks like a recipe for disaster.
Among many other things, in-home care alleviates the burden from hospitals and health care facilities already overloaded with acutely ill patients and provides care to patients who might not otherwise get care due to financial and transportation issues.
Additionally, these factors are bound to have a huge impact on hospice services who provide so much care, including all important pain management, to patients and families.
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