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The 2021 HHCN Home Care Conference was without a doubt the most unique Home Care event yet, and Caresmartz was happy to be one of its sponsors. With home care experts sharing their take on non-medical home care trends, challenges, technology, and much more, the conference was as immersive, eye-opening, and thought-provoking as ever.

The conference offered thought-provoking, motivating, and informative talks, as well as top trends, shaping home care. It entirely focused on rethinking and redefining how we deliver the best in home care in a period of extreme uncertainty.

Continue reading for the best of the highlights from the HHCN 2021 home care conference’s various events. We assure you will love them!

Recruitment and Retention Strategies for Home Care Agencies

The COVID-19 outbreak, vaccination mandates, and other hurdles hastened the need for 25 percent more people to switch jobs than originally predicted, putting additional staffing pressure on the home care providers.

Dedicated recruitment and retention strategies, however, have enabled some providers — Interim Healthcare and Help at Home — to defuse the explosive situation to some extent.

Let’s see, what they had to say about it:

• To keep their clients and caregivers healthy, Help at home managed to educate their caregivers on the effectiveness and the merits of the vaccine and all the other pieces of effective [COVID-19] prevention.
• Vaccination incentives are another measure taken by Help at Home to keep caregivers on board. According to O’Rourke, the company’s service areas with vaccine obligations haven’t witnessed a reduction in staffing.
• Staff Bifurcation — i.e., redeploying the ones who are vaccinated for areas falling under the mandate while employing the rest of the workforce somewhere else — has been a huge assistance in retaining and making the best use of the workforce!
• Interim launched “Made for This,” a recruitment campaign that focuses on professional growth, development, specialized training, and assisting the unemployed in finding a perfect fit in home care.
• “Now we’ve gone from days to hours, in terms of the time and that funnel,” O’Rourke said. This transformation in the payroll system strengthened the staff’s faith and willingness to stick by the providers in tough times!

Home Care’s Uncertain Legal and Regulatory Environment

The changing legal and regulatory environment in home care has posed problems to the bottom line and the workplace. Worst of all, providers frequently lack the necessary knowledge.

During the conference, Angelo Spinola, co-chair of the legal firm Polsinelli’s home health and home care business group, well-framed what we all are confronting.

“Labor costs are going up,” Spinola said. “And so there’s all these different pay rates, which create overtime and calculation issues, as well as rate manipulation claims. We’ve seen, I think, five U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) cases around the country right now. The DOL is just really, really active on the enforcement side. And as an industry, I believe we are still a little behind on the compliance side.”

Opportunities within the Intersection of Home Care and Senior Living

With the rise of Covid-19, home-based care has arisen as a lucrative potential for senior housing operators wishing to broaden their service offerings.

Back in June, Bickford Senior Living, a senior living operator partnered with the HomeCare Advocacy Network (HCAN) to launch a home-based care service. They offered some crucial insights during the HHCN conference for any operator wishing to extend their services in this area.

• According to the annual LZ 200 list, home and community-based services are provided by more than half of the major nonprofit senior living operators in the United States.
• In comparison to a senior living system, home care operates in a completely different manner. You must begin with the appropriate wages and prices while keeping profit margins in mind.
• Bickford Senior Living’s biggest problems during this growth have been perfecting the scheduling procedure and locating the right caregivers!

Good Read: Caresmartz is a Proud Sponsor of HHCN Home Care Conference 2021

Top Trends Shaping Home Care

Home care software providers must understand the important trends that will benefit or hinder their operations in order to stay competitive in 2022 and beyond. During the conference, many of the home care experts made forecasts for the following year, but the following two stood out. Read to find out!

• Home care staffing shortages are only going to get worse, according to Jennifer Sheets, president, and CEO of Caring Brands International and Interim HealthCare. “The reality is there are more and more people coming into the need for our care, with less and less people to provide the care,” she said during the event.
• Another activity that played a key role in influencing the path of home care this year was Deal making. A number of larger franchise organizations have been acquired, according to Petranick, and this trend is expected to continue in 2022.

Concluding

2021 was full of valuable lessons and eye-opening revelations!

We’re happy to have attended this networking event and being at the forefront of supporting the home care community in planning well for the present and future.