Aging baby boomers face home health care challenge

Without the help of a home health aide, the woman, who's in her 70s, would be in a nursing home instead of living on her own.

But Tate has her own struggles. Until a recent promotion, her pay amounted to what she could make at McDonald's. She doesn't get health or retirement benefits and has worked at five agencies in the Cleveland area, some simultaneously, to guarantee she'll have enough clients.

"If they go into the hospital or go on vacation, you don't get paid," she said.

Demand for home health care workers is soaring as baby boomers — the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — get older and states try to save money by moving people out of more costly nursing homes. But filling more than 1 million new home care positions over the next decade will be a challenge.

Most home health aides are paid about the same as maids and manicurists and don't get sick days or health insurance themselves. Many who are self-employed must pay for their own gas for driving to appointments and cover their own medical bills if they're hurt on the job.

The U.S. Labor Department projects that home health and personal care aides will be among the fastest-growing jobs over the next decade, adding 1.3 million positions and increasing at a rate higher than any other occupation. If those jobs can't be filled, many older Americans are likely to face living with relatives or in nursing homes, which will only cost families and taxpayers more money.

Some aides say they have no choice but to say no when people call looking for help because they can't afford to take on someone else.

"It's hard because I love helping people, but at the same time I've got three kids," said Kimberly Ingram, a home health aide in Lancaster, S.C. "When you add up your miles, your gas money, you don't make nothing."

Her part-time job delivering newspapers pays better when you factor in the time and travel some home care jobs need, she said.

Nearly half of all home care workers live at or below the poverty level, and many receive government benefits such as food stamps, unions and advocacy groups say. The median pay a year ago was $9.70 per hour — 4 cents less than fast-food workers and short-order cooks, according to the most recent statistics from the Labor Department.

Agencies that supply home health workers blame states and the federal government for failing to increase reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare patients at a time when costs are going up.

Home health services are an easy target for cuts because they're not required by federal law, and legislators in states with big deficits say they have no choice but to cut Medicaid spending, the second-costliest item for states behind education.

At the same time, some states, including Ohio, are changing how they coordinate medical care and trying to move some of the most expensive and hard-to-treat patients into home and community-based settings instead of nursing homes.

The result, home care agencies say, is that there's little room for them to make a profit. And that means they can go only so far to attract new workers.

"We compete with McDonald's, Wendy's and the discount stores," said Jennifer Witten, owner of Imani Home Health Co. in Cleveland. "You can't afford to raise your salaries, yet you want to hire the best people."

Home care agencies say trying to fill jobs will become even more difficult in a few years if the economy improves and job options increase.

"The real staffing challenge is 10 years away," said David Tramontana, president of Home Care by Black Stone in Cincinnati. "If we can't pay them more than they get at McDonald's, we're in big trouble."