Guest MINDSETTER™ Ward: Do Not Pass Paid Sick Leave Legislation Yet
Vincent Ward, GoLocalProv Guest MINDSETTER™
Guest MINDSETTER™ Ward: Do Not Pass Paid Sick Leave Legislation Yet
Since 2002, home care agencies have seen only a 75 cent per hour increase in pediatric nursing reimbursements while the average wage since then has increased approximately $12 per hour. This average includes the state’s hospitals, the private hospitals, and nursing homes where wages have continuously climbed while home care nurses’ wages remain stagnant. Under current reimbursement rates, I pay the nurses that work for my company a wage of about $25 per hour, which is $11 lower than the average. This is because previous and current gubernatorial administrations and the General Assembly have not taken meaningful action to revert the home care access crisis and especially our nursing shortage.
To make matters worse, Governor Raimondo has established additional mandates such as the electronic visit verification program, years ahead of a federal mandate, that has not proven that there is any malicious business practices leading to fraud, waste or abuse by the surviving home care providers in our ailing state. Compound this with skyrocketing workers’ compensation insurance rates, utility costs, rent, professional and general liability insurance rates, compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on offering health insurance, time and travel mandates, and taxes, it is a wonder how there are home care agencies remaining in state. The answer is actually quite simple. It is because home care providers have transitioned from being healthcare providers to the state’s interest-free lending institutions in order to maintain operations. To stay operational, companies like mine have to subsidize the Medicaid program through other payor sources, maximizing lines of credit and sacrificing our own pay and our own obligations to our families to ensure that patients receive care and that our direct care staff have a paycheck at the end of the week.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThere always seems to be money in the General Fund for legislative leadership and the Governor to fund their priorities regardless of soft revenue projections and structural deficits, such as free college tuition and reduction of municipal car taxes. However, when it comes to meaningful funding to care for the state’s patients, many of whom paid into the system for decades until they retired, have now outlived their resources and need support to remain safe at home with my company’s services, our Governor, Speaker and Senate President cry poverty ad nauseam. Yet, what about the home care agencies in which they are taking advantage of until they go bankrupt, like Homefront Health Care last month and the others that have recently closed? Where can our homebound population go when our state’s leaders have turned their backs on them and the providers that want to deliver their care?
As much as I, along with others in my industry, want to offer our staff a competitive wage and benefits, as well as support initiatives such as paid sick time, home care providers simply cannot afford to do it at this time. I urge the General Assembly to not pass any further mandates, including a paid sick leave law, until they first resolve the UHIP implementation failure and increase home care reimbursement rates to where they are competitive with neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The Power List - Health and Education, 2016
Inside Man
Russell Carey - A name few outside of Brown’s campus know, but Carey is the power source at the Providence Ivy League institution.
Today, his title is Executive Vice President and he has had almost every title at Brown short of President. Carey is a 1991 graduate of Brown and has never left College Hill.
While Brown’s President Christine Paxson — who is functionally invisible in Rhode Island — is managing alumni affairs and fundraising, Carey is influencing almost everything in Rhode Island.
Top Raimondo Appointment
Nicole Alexander-Scott - MD, MPH, and rock star in the making. As Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, she is fast developing a reputation as someone in the Raimondo Administration who can get things done. Her counsel and leadership on developing a strategy on opioid addiction has been widely been lauded.
In addition, she has handled the mundane - from beach closings to food recalls - with competency. An expert in infectious disease, it may be time for her to become a strong leader on Zika.
The CEO
Ronald Machtley - Bryant University's President rightfully deserves to be on a lot of lists, but what few understand is that Machtley’s influence extends far beyond Bryant’s campus in Smithfield. Machtley could make this list as a business leader or as a political force as much as for education.
Machtley is recognized for transforming Bryant University from a financially struggling regional college to a university with a national reputation for business.
Machtley serves on Amica’s Board and the Rhode Island Foundation, and also serves on the Board of Fantex Brands.
Power Broker
Larry Purtill - While Bob Walsh gets the face time as the Executive Director in the media for the NEA of Rhode Island, NEARI President Purtill tends to be the inside man who gets things done.
The teachers' largest union is formidable, but is still reeling from the beat down it took when Gina Raimondo’s pension reform cut the benefits of teachers disproportionately over other employee groups.
Make no mistake about it - not much happens in education in Rhode Island without Purtill's sign-off.
Visionary
Mim Runey - While Rhode Islanders wait, and wait some more, for development on the 195 land, Johnson and Wale's University's Runey is watching it come to fruition, as JWU is set to open the first completed building on the former Interstate on September 1, when it will host a ribbon cutting for its John J. Bowen Center for Science and Innovation.
Under Runey, JWU continues to establish its foothold as one of the country's top schools for culinary training. Now Runey will oversee the addition of the new building on the old 195 which will house the university's School of Engineering and Design and its biology program.
In 2015, students from the School of Engineering & Design participated in the construction of the Holocaust Memorial on South Main Street, a collaboration between the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and the Holocaust Education Resource Center of Rhode Island.
A true community partner in every sense, JWU under Runey's watchful eye is expanding to an even greater presence in Providence.
Chairman of the Board
Edwin J. Santos - The former banker is Chairman of the Board of CharterCare, after having been a top executive at Citizens Bank. He has been a board leader for Crossroads, Washington Trust, Rocky Hill School -- you name it and Santos has helped to lead it.
His best work to date just might be at CharterCare, where he has helped the once fledgling hospital (Roger Williams Medical Center) into a growing hospital system.
Lion Tamer
Weber Shill - He serves as the Chief Executive Officer of University Orthopedics, or in other words, dozens and dozens of oh-so-confident docs.
Shill has a background in Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from the Whitemore School at the University of New Hampshire. Experienced in managing medical groups, but this group is big and influential.
Boss
Timothy Babineau - President and CEO of Lifespan, Rhode Island's biggest healthcare organization, where financial challenges make the job that much more complicated.
Now, the critics (GoLocalProv included) are raising concerns about the multi- billion dollar organization's refusal to make any contribution to the City of Providence. Lifespan is like General Motors, big and hard to innovate the organization.
