First in a series
Going into business in the 21st century probably is more complicated than it was, say, in caveman times.
At Home Nursing Care, one of the community’s newest enterprises, open less than a month, raised its blinds on Overland Avenue just as a bevy of hurricane-strength regulations began blowing through California.
District Manager Adriana Beischl describes the recently expanded five-year-old agency headquartered in San Diego as a non-medical, home healthcare service. “More than anything,” she says, “we provide companion services, run errands, help with dressing.
“A lot of our employees are CNAs, Certified Nurse Assistants, home health aides and caregivers who have been doing this for many years.”
Healthcare businesses such as At Home have become necessary and vital, Ms. Beischl says, because of changing human conditions.
“With the rise of Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Baby Boomers growing older, people are living much longer lives and requiring help,” she says. “Dementia is the fastest growing disease now.”
Besides the anticipated confounding details embedded in the fabric of new or expanded businesses, operators are confronted by an impenetrable thicket of freshly birthed healthcare regulations, not least the insoluble puzzle that is Obamacare.
This being the most regulated state in the country, Californians draw a reverse bonus when they go into business.
And that is what Ms. Beischl wanted to talk about, two recently passed Assembly bills that were to become law on Jan. 1.
Both are the newest born special children of labor unions, designed to spike lagging union membership.
For Your Protection?
A.B. 1217, known lovingly, and perhaps deceptively, as the “Home Care Services Consumer Protection Act,” is a mantra that may have been borrowed from days of yore when protection rackets flowed, and blow did, too.
The legislative analyst summarizes 1217: “This bill would provide for the licensure and regulation of home care organizations, as defined, by the state Dept. of Social Services, and the registration of home care aides. The bill would exclude specified entities from the definition of a home care organization and would not include certain types of individuals as home care aides for the purposes of these provisions.”
“Twelve-seventeen won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2015,” says Ms. Beischl, “because of all the logistical problems that come with it.
• “Who is going to manage the caregivers’ registry?
• “Update it?
• “What will the licensing test look like?
• “What if the caregivers can’t pass the test?
“So the government of California has a year to figure it out.”
For the present, enthusiastic labor advocates for 1217 will have to stew on a back burner.
“As an industry, we are eager as an industry to spread the word about Assembly Bill 241, the Domestic Bill of Rights,” she says.
“I went to an event yesterday, and the social workers, care managers, discharge managers, and head of nursing had no idea about these bills and how they will affect the very clients they are trying to protect as they discharge them into their homes.
“The cost of live-in care,” Ms. Beischl is convinced, “will significantly increase.
“Most companies have chosen to simply do without it. What does that mean? A patient who requires 24-hour care now will have three caregivers providing that care.”
Union rules, you know.
“What happens to the vulnerable,” she asks, “to patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia? Undoubtedly, their level of anxiety will increase.”
(To be continued)
