Workforce Top Issue for Homecare Industry

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (February 8, 2022)—At the Home Care 100 conference, there was one overwhelming message from leaders in the home health and hospice industry: Workforce is the No. 1 issue facing homecare now—and for the foreseeable future. 

“We have a real caregiver problem that’s going to last 20+ years. This is the new normal, we’re going to have a workforce shortage that’s going to last forever,” David Ellis, president and founder of Home Care 100, told the conference as he opened the first panel. The conference brings together top-level decisionmakers from the post-acute industry; this year it is celebrating its 20th anniversary. 

Even Former Vice President Al Gore got in on the conversation, pointing out the hiring pressures in his afternoon virtual speech to the audience. 

“There is a crisis in your industry in recruiting and retaining the workers that you absolutely depend upon,” Gore said. He encouraged the homecare operators present to increase wages—and said there should be increased reimbursement to make sure that happens, as well as technological changes to make their lives easier and a need to allow for open legal immigration to fill critical positions. 

Chris Gerard, president and chief operating officer of Amedisys Home Health & Hospice, said that an aging population will create hiring pressures that could last for years, even if the current crisis of clinical hiring that’s been driven by the pandemic subsides. 

“Longer term, there’s still going to be some lingering effects of this pandemic. A lot of nurses have left the profession, temporarily or altogether,” he said. “The demand is here and the demand will be here for quite some time. We’re going to run into a supply and demand issue for the next several years.” 

One of the answers is creating a better culture and lifestyle, several participants said, including David Baiada, CEO of the nonprofit national agency BAYADA Home Health Care, which moderator Tim Craig, vice president and chief content director for Lincoln Healthcare Leadership, which organized the conference, called a “gold standard” for company culture. 

“It’s ironic,” Baiada said. “We’re a professional services industry and for the first time, we’re finally talking about people.” 

“This is a permanent crisis,” he continued. “This is not going away. It’s not a moment where we’re going to be worried about it for a little while, this is a potentially existential crisis about access to care … and not to have this as our No. 1 conversation would be a tragedy.” 

Baiada said homecare operators should go through the application process required for a Door Dash or Amazon Flex driver—and then apply to one of their own shift jobs. 

“I’ve done it,” he said. “It is astonishing and will show you why it’s so hard to find people. We’re getting our lunch eaten.” 

Some suggested that the industry should team up to create a “Got Milk”-style marketing campaign to draw new workers to the industry and reaching out to nursing schools or even lower down into the education system.   

“I think as an industry we should be very collaborative,” said Bruce Greenstein, chief strategy and innovation officer for LHC Group. “It makes a benefit for all of us if we expand the pipeline.” Greenstein also said the industry should stop referring to non-medical or personal care providers as “unskilled.” 

On the upside, David Causby, president and CEO of Kindred at Home, 
said his company’s patient volumes were back at or near pre-COVID-19 levels as people have become more comfortable either seeking acute care or allowing people into their homes. 

And throughout the conference, presenters said the pandemic boosted the industry by raising awareness of its importance among referrers, payers and the public. 

“The importance and capabilities of care in the home just came to life during the pandemic. When you saw patients diverted from skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes and go straight to the home, you saw what this industry could do,” Gerard said.