On Thursday, April 23rd, 2015, Mobile Health co-sponsored a Wage Parity Act Symposium. The Symposium tackled the issues of what obligations employers have, what risks they face, and what benefits they can pursue for their employees.
Mobile Health’s CEO, Andrew Shulman, discussed the health of home health aides and the possibility of offering expanded wellness services to home health aides as a substantial benefit.
Below is a recap of Andrew Shulman’s discussion, along with a link to the audio and pictures from the event. Please contact us with any questions you may have about the Wage Parity Act.
Why is Mobile Health Speaking?
With additional money available to be spent on Home Health Aides as mandated by the Wage Parity Act, Mobile Health saw an opportunity to offer helpful expanded health and wellness services to Home Health Aides. As you will see below, the health of this population of workers is fairly poor – which has an adverse affect on both them and their employees.
Health of Home Health Aides
Mobile Health saw over 52,000 Home Health Aides in the first quarter of this year and performed over 30,000 physicals. Our current health screening of Home Health Aides takes into account blood pressure, body mass index, and a brief medical history. From this information we found that:
- Gender: 92% of employees screened were women
- Age: The Median Age is 48
- Blood Pressure: 55% are pre-hypertensive, 7% have Stage 1 hypertension, and 2% have Stage 2 hypertension
- BMI: 39% are considered obese and 34% are consider overweight
- Diabetes: As no glucose testing was performed, this figure is self-reported, which makes this statistic of questionable reliability. According to the Home Health Aides seen, only 9% of them have diabetes. This number seems very unlikely considering other health factors.
- Insurance: 76% of patients have health insurance (including Medicaid), while 24% do not. Of the patients who have health insurance, the vast majority of them see their Primary Care Provider on a regular basis.
What does this data mean?
In short, Home Health Aides are an unhealthy population. However, Home Health Aides are the most valuable asset of a Home Health Agency. Without them, there is no service and there is no company. Unhealthy Home Health Aides leads to increased sick days, reduced productivity, increased chances of spreading illness to co-workers and patients. These conditions can have a profound negative impact on your agency as they can lead to unhappy customers, lost cases, and increased turnover and administrative costs. So, it’s in the interests of everyone, the agency, the employee, and the patient, that Home Health Aides maintain their health.
Therefore, the lack of more elaborate health screening processes is a missed opportunity – prior to now Home Health Aides haven’t had cholesterol or glucose tests and haven’t had care that includes smoking cessation or health risk factor avoidance discussions.
Thus, an expanded wellness screening program is of the utmost importance, and this is where Mobile Health steps in.
What will Mobile Health offer?
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Mobile Health has learned that:
- The Wage Parity Act allows for wellness benefits
- Providing health benefits is less cost prohibitive than increasing wages
- If offered health benefits, Home Health Aides will utilize them – it’s a benefit that people are actually going to use.
Mobile Health knows that a healthier Home Health Aides means a healthier Home Health Agency. With this in mind, Mobile Health is partnering with a variety of medical facilities to offer expanded wellness solutions, more comprehensive screening, and more convenient health benefits – such as using the one-visit only QuantiFERON TB test instead of a two-visit PPD Implant – in an effort to turn benefits provided under the Wage Parity Act into a happier and healthier Home Health Aides workforce.
*Listen to the full audio of Andrew Shulman’s discussion and see pictures from the event*
The audio is low volume, best when listened to with headphones.
