2023 Home Care Recap: Paving the Way for Home Care in 2024

As we bid farewell to 2023, and welcome in 2024, we’re excited to share ways that you can get creative in the new year. From caregiver to clients, we’ll go through it all. 

Have a new employee come on board? Or just want to get familiar with the industry? Use this to catch up to speed on what’s been happening in the home care space. 

Here’s a recap of what happened this past year: 

• A concerted focus on bringing diversity to recruiting efforts 
• Calls to contract providers directly with payers 
• Technology was under the spotlight 
• A renewed focus on social determinants of health 
• Advocacy and voices for home care workers gained steam
• Demand has increased for services (and will continue)
• Focus on quality and outcomes (with value-based care)

Focus on bringing diversity to recruiting efforts.

What’s worked in the past isn’t getting us the same results anymore. Home care agencies are now putting a spin on their tricks to find new recruitment streams and targets for caregivers. 

Agencies are now looking at recruiting talent with more varied backgrounds. Here are some examples: 

Home Care Pulse heard from a caregiver, “I want them to give me clients, but it’s hard because I am a male caregiver.” As the demand grows for home care workers, agencies have to broaden their scope and find opportunities to accommodate a more diverse and inclusive caregiver talent base. 

One home care agency in New York profiled their caregivers, and some of their professions include: Marine, sculptor, and another had a Ph.D. in neuroscience. These unique perspectives bring delight and curiosity into the lives of clients and create new points of discussion and conversation.

What non-traditional backgrounds have been an asset to your home care agency?

Calls to contract providers directly with payers. 

Keith Myers, CEO of LHC Group, has repeatedly called for removing the middle man as it relates to Medicare Advantage. Whether it’s fee-for-service or value-based care, being equipped to work directly is always the best option.

“I think we’ve done a lot more with managed care [because of our JVs with hospitals], and I have really good relationships with executives…But I think our biggest problem are the conveners in the middle of all of this,” he shared in Home Healthcare News. 

With lower reimbursement rates than other sources, seniors and their families may look at other options instead. Medicare Advantage can offer a lot of promise to older adults with certain needs, and the ability to work directly with payers can help to bridge gaps and close the loop when situations arise. 

Technology was under the spotlight.

Did you know that 61% of people 65 and older have a smartphone? The end user and buyer of home care services is going to continue to grow and change with technological trends. Bearing that in mind, make sure that you have talking points that are appropriate for:

• Older adults in need of care or their spouses 
• Veterans (and/or their spouses)
• Adult children (and their siblings) 
• Grandchildren
• And referral partners 

Beyond the smartphone, home care and age technology had a spotlight in 2023. Some of those include sleek watches with tracking features (helpful for people living with dementia), smart screens, and smart medication organizers. 

For home care agencies, remote patient monitoring and adding a digital component to services will become more important as time goes on. The onset of ChatGPT, Midjourney, Bard, and Gemini have all led home care agencies to adopt many forms of automation/AI and save time in daily operations. 

Have you used AI in your business?

A refreshed focus on social determinants of health.

Home care agencies have always understood the impact of non-medical factors in clients' lives. Conversations about social determinants of health reinforce the need for these services. 

This push is coming from Z-codes and Medicare Advantage looking at SDOH more closely. With that comes the necessity to collect relevant information on social determinants of health when creating care plans. That can include:

• Asking clients about their perception of their home’s safety
• Asking clients about their educational background
• Asking clients about their professional background 
• Asking clients about their access to healthcare services (and any barriers to care or relevant information/education)

Knowing this information can help you better coordinate care services with other vendors, like home healthcare and hospice companies. 

A fresh focus on caregiver voices and advocacy

The MissionCare Collective launched a study that examined the lives of caregivers and it’s a highly recommended read if you haven’t already. 

Here is the high-level summary: 

• Many caregivers are of-faith and that’s important to capture in your recruiting and retention strategies. 
• Caregivers need to be properly introduced to clients. 
• Clearly communicate and reinforce who caregivers could contact for scheduling and payroll issues, and available support systems.

Read and watch their stories HERE. Aside from MissionCare Collective, many organizations have come together to support and spearhead new advocacy efforts, including a report by Home Care Association of America (now led by CEO, Jason Lee) created in partnership with the National Association for Home Care and Hospice.

The demand for care increases.

No surprises here, but we wanted to keep you updated with what’s happened as a result. Experts agree that we don’t have adequate resources to accommodate our aging population, and we have a lot of work to do to properly document and account for what’s needed to change in the next few years. 

This demand shift has created a tough situation for home care agencies that have struggled to find and keep qualified caregivers. Family caregivers have stepped up to the plate and need your support. 

Read more in the New York Times’ Dying Broke. 

Don’t mistake this, though, as an equal standard. Not all geographies and regions are experiencing these demographic shifts as acutely as others. One exception is Utah. 27.6% of the state’s population is under the age of 18, while people over the age of 65 account for 12% of their population, according to the Census. 

“Pay attention to your market’s demographics and lean into what you can. If you’re in Utah or a state with a younger population, maximize your recruiting efforts to provide exceptional care to the seniors in your area. As demographics shift, you can address this issue more nimbly if you have a readily available bench of caregivers,” head of sales, Julio Barea. 

Focus on quality and outcomes

Non-medical home care services haven’t had a proper seat at the healthcare discussion table, and that needs to change. Value-based care or VBC programs have brought the home care space into the healthcare fold, but we need to do our part too. 

Families are increasingly concerned about care quality and need to know that their loved one’s condition will improve as a result of bringing in home care services. They need reassurance that your help will help their situation, especially when working with already tight budgets. 

A new example of this will start in 2024, called Value-Based Insurance Design or VBID, a new model of Medicare Advantage plans. More than 12 million members are predicted to participate in these programs next year. 

Read more about this from CMS. 

What this model of care does differently, is align incentives with what members need. That includes integrating person-centered care best practices and a focus on social determinants of health (SDOH), more specifically, including addressing access to care, transportation, and nutritious food.

Speaking of outcomes, this year’s HCAOA Caregiver of the Year, Eulodia Ortiz, dug her vehicle out of the snow first thing in the morning with a list of clients who needed a visit and helped out many of her coworkers who were unable to attend their scheduled shifts. 

Access to home care means enabling independence and community for millions of lives every year. Give yourself a round of applause for the meaningful work that your agency does every day, and be sure to write it down. We need to show as much evidence on quality and outcomes as possible to secure the billing rates that we need across all payer sources, including private pay.