New Jersey – Hearts for Home Care

NJ: GAO Hits the Road to Meet with Service Offices Across the State

GAO Director Louise Lindenmeier (center) meets with the PAS office to learn about their struggles recruiting and retaining quality aides

Every year, the Government Affairs Office (GAO) travels the state to connect with our service offices about our legislative priorities and the importance of advocacy. Not only do these visits give us the opportunity to share the work we do to improve the state of home health care in New Jersey, but they also give us the unique chance to hear about the challenges you all often face in attempting to deliver the compassionate, excellent, and reliable care that our clients deserve.

Throughout our visits so far, we have been able to celebrate our collective successes and accomplishments. In 2018, our GAO Ambassadors and service office employees attended a number of district office visits and legislative receptions, and participated in phone banks, letter writing campaigns, and action alerts all in support of accomplishing legislative priorities that support our nurses, aides, clients, and families. Without your partnership and collaboration, we would be unable to deliver on our promise to act as the voice for BAYADA and its clients and employees.

In addition to celebrating last year’s successes, we have worked together to identify ongoing challenges and to form our 2019 legislative priorities and strategies. As we’ve formed these priorities, it is clear that our grassroots efforts and your continued commitment to advocacy will be integral to achieving our goals.

Thank you to the many offices who have made the time to meet with us. In 2019, we will continue our outreach effort to accomplish our goal of meeting with 100% of our New Jersey service offices. If you’d like to learn more about our road show, our 2019 legislative priorities, or getting more involved in advocacy at BAYADA, contact advocacy@bayada.com.

Client & Family Stories: Meet Tara Montague

Tara is an advocate for her family, and yours.

NJ Assemblywoman Carol Murphy with home care advocate Tara and daughter Mary, who has SMA — NJ Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (right) learned about the benefits of home care when she visited Mary and Tara at their home.

Last summer, as lawmakers in Washington, DC debated health care reform, Tara Montague had cause for concern. The proposed legislation included significant cuts to Medicaid, which for Tara and her family, could have been disastrous.

Tara and her husband, Jim, rely on home care nursing for their daughter Mary, 20, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). They know that many families turn to Medicaid to cover the cost of home care and feel fortunate to have private insurance for Mary’s nurses. However, they depend on Medicaid for Mary’s prescriptions and medical equipment, which total in the thousands each month.

“Mary is on numerous medications, and her medical equipment includes a ventilator, oxygen, a wheelchair and hospital bed, feeding pump supplies, a nebulizer, pulse oximeter machine, and more,” said Tara. “Without Medicaid, I don’t know what we’d do, and that’s why I fight so hard to get Mary the benefits she needs.”

Giving families a voice

As a parent of a child with special needs, Tara can understand and empathize with our clients’ daily struggles because she lives it, every day. Last year, she joined BAYADA’s Government Affairs office as manager of client and family advocacy. Here, she continues to fight for Mary, and for every pediatric and adult client who depends on home health care to live with comfort, independence, and dignity.

“Last summer I worked with BAYADA clients who were willing to share their stories with federal legislators to help prevent the Medicaid cuts,” said Tara. “As I continue to grow in this new role, I hope to encourage more and more families to speak up, to have a voice, and to know that they can make a huge difference in the legislative process.”

Getting involved is quick and easy

Tara knows all too well that for clients and families, the biggest obstacle to getting involved is time. That’s why she encourages them to register with BAYADA’s Hearts for Home Care Advocacy Center at heartsforhomecare.com.

“We are not looking for a huge time commitment, it’s whatever they feel comfortable with doing,” she said.

The mission of Hearts for Home Care is to be a voice for BAYADA employees, clients, and their families. Through education, advocacy, research, and community service, BAYADA advocates for policies that support the highest quality of home health care services. The online advocacy center keeps clients and families informed about legislative issues at the state and federal level that can impact the home health care industry, and their access to care.

Advocacy can be a simple as taking five minutes to log onto the Hearts for Home Care Advocacy Center website and sending a pre-written email to local, state, and federal legislators. If clients and families want to do more, they can share their stories on the Hearts for Home Care Advocacy Center website; attend a lobby day at their state capital, a legislative round table, or a town hall; they can visit a legislator’s office; or invite a legislator into their home to see, first hand, how home health care professionals help improve lives.

Connecting with families and sharing stories

Tara has a degree in political science and extensive experience in marketing. In her previous role as a community liaison with a BAYADA Pediatrics office in New Jersey, she educated physicians about home health care, started a parent support group, coordinated a family resource fair, and helped families navigate through insurance challenges.

In her new role she hopes to develop training materials and tools for clients and families who want to become more active in advocacy efforts. But even more, she is looking forward to getting to know clients and families from across the country, and helping to share their stories – just like Mary’s.

To learn more about Hearts for Home Care, how you can get involved with advocacy, or how you can share your story, contact Tara at tmontague@bayada.com.

BAYADA NJ PAC Hosts a Fundraising Event for Assemblyman Troy Singleton

BAYADA staff and NJ Assemblyman Troy Singleton (center)

On Thursday, October 26, the BAYADA NJ PAC hosted a fundraising event in Trenton honoring 7th District Assemblyman Troy Singleton. Attendees included 7th District Assembly candidate Carol Murphy, representatives from the home care industry and other industries supportive of Assemblyman Singleton, who is currently running for the 7th District Senate seat.

Chief Government Affairs Officer David Totaro welcomed Assemblyman Singleton and thanked the many sponsors and attendees who contributed over $13,000 in support of the Assemblyman’s campaign. Assemblyman Singleton has been a supporter home care, our clients, and employees for many years. He recently sponsored legislation that will mandate managed care companies to reimburse the Personal Care Assistant (PCA) Program at no less than the state’s fee-for-service rate.

In July, Assemblyman Singleton introduced new legislation to increase the reimbursement rate under state fee-for-service for private duty nursing by $10 per hour. During the event, BAYADA recognized Assemblyman Singleton as the “Legislator of the Year” for his ongoing commitment to making home care better and stronger, as clients and families deserve the care they need in the setting they prefer: their own homes.

Fifth Annual NJ BAYADA Champion Awards Ceremony Connects with Purpose

Dave Totaro, Champions Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, Senator-elect Declan O’Scanlon, Lieutenant Governor-elect Sheila Oliver, and Louise Lindenmeier

In December at the BAYADA Home Health Care Champion Awards we reflected on a year of many victories and looked ahead to a new year with new challenges. Speakers, awardees and nearly 100 guests celebrated the successful increase of NJ’s fee-for-service rate for personal care assistants to $19 per hour. We also acknowledged employees’, clients’ and home care industry friends’ commitment to advocacy. These efforts led to the passage of A320/S1018, which was signed by Governor Christie earlier this year. Effective this July, A320/S1018 requires Managed Medicaid reimbursement rates for home health aide services to be at or above the state’s fee-for-service rate.

An inspirational highlight of the night, those in attendance were moved by Dana Insley’s touching speech. Dana is the mother of a young client who had a difficult start to life. Dana’s daughter was placed in foster care before being adopted by the Insley family. Dana spoke of the blessing home care has been in her family’s life and discussed the significant improvements her daughter has made with the support of her BAYADA nurses.

The evening’s honorees, Lieutenant Governor-elect Sheila Oliver, Senator-elect Declan O’Scanlon, and Assemblywoman Nancy Muñoz were visibly moved by Dana’s remarks and reiterated their support for home care during their acceptance remarks.

Also honored at the ceremony was Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, who represents New Jersey’s 4th District, which encompasses the Insley family’s home. Assemblyman Moriarty had visited the Insleys home in the past and was able to glean a full and meaningful understanding of the day-to-day life of a child receiving home care.

After a heartfelt evening that reminded everyone of our purpose and why we do what we do, Chief Government Affairs Officer David Totaro took the stage to remind all of those in attendance of the importance of advocacy and that, in addition to words, action is needed. He noted the huge impact of New Jersey advocates, who sent nearly one-quarter of all messages directed to federal legislators this summer from BAYADA’s network during the health care reform debate. Thank You for your commitment to advocacy.

Together with our Champions, we can make a meaningful difference to the lives of our clients and BAYADA caregivers. If you would like to get more involved in New Jersey’s advocacy program, sign up to become a Heart for Home Care Advocate.

NJ GAO 2017 Year in Review

As I reflect on 2017 and what we have accomplished, the first thing that comes to mind is Thank You. Thank you for your support, your engagement and your advocacy efforts — all of which made a difference in the lives of our clients, families and employees.

2017 was the “Year of Client Advocacy and Engagement.” Clients and families engaged lawmakers and the community at-large through home visits, family support group meetings, and phone calls and meetings with lawmakers in Trenton. These efforts ensured that our aides, nurses, and the importance of home care remained top of mind to New Jersey representatives and senators.

2017 was successful in many ways and set us up for even bigger wins in 2018. Below, please find a summary of 2017’s priorities and accomplishments:

• The Managed Medicaid Rate Floor bill was signed into law, effective July 1, 2018. The new law mandates a 100% pass-through of increased reimbursement to aides. In 2018 we will introduce a new bill which will be more reflective of a competitive wage environment and will mirror the original bill with no mandated pass-through.

• The Personal Care Assistant (PCA) fee-for-service rate was raised from $18.00 per hour to $19.00 per hour through a budget resolution, effective July 1, 2017.

• We successfully lobbied against Governor Christie’s intent to end the NJ/PA Reciprocity Tax agreement. This accomplishment saved our employees and BAYADA thousands of dollars in taxes.

• In July, the Private Duty Nursing (PDN) bill was introduced. This bill’s aim is to raise the PDN reimbursement rate by $10 per hour for RNs and LPNs. While the bill did not ultimately pass the state legislature in 2017, it brought awareness to the need for higher reimbursement rates within the program. We will continue to pursue this bill’s passage as a major goal for 2018.

• In conjunction with NJ’s Home Care Association, we successfully lobbied for legislation that permits physical therapy aides to practice in clients’ homes as long as the aides are supervised by a licensed physical therapist every two weeks.

• The BAYADA Champion Awards were held in December. This year we honored Lieutenant Governor-elect Sheila Oliver, Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, Assemblyman Paul Moriarty and Senator-elect Declan O’Scanlon for their unwavering support of home care.

• BAYADA hosted a fundraiser for Senator-elect Troy Singleton, raising over $13,000 for his election fund.

• BAYADA reviewed and submitted comments to the state regarding the new 10:60 home care regulations.

Looking ahead to 2018, we will be working with Governor-elect Murphy and NJ legislators new and old to continue to advance home care and community-based services for our state’s neediest populations. GAO seeks to push for new laws to improve reimbursement rates within the PDN program, introduce legislation to provide technical changes to the current PCA managed care law, pursue minimum wage law changes, address parking challenges for our nurses and, of course, continue to advocate on behalf of our employees, clients and their families.

Cheers to an exciting year ahead! If you would like to get more involved in New Jersey’s advocacy program, sign up to become a Heart for Home Care Advocate.