Too Remote For Care?
July 10, 2008— -- In the small town of Scobey, Mont., registered nurse Lois Leibrand remains optimistic that the elderly population in her community will have little to fear from the cutbacks many in-home care centers are undergoing in the face of rising gas prices.
A combination of rising costs, particularly for fuel, and declining compensation from Medicare has forced some care centers across the country to cut back on staff and services and others to close their doors completely. And the prospects for staffing and funding in-home care amid the rising expenses could become even more difficult as baby boomers begin entering old age.
Leibrand says her care center, attached to Daniels Memorial Hospital, will persevere as it has in the past.
"We were very fortunate that we keep ours open, just to serve this community, even though we had to cut almost all of our staff," she said. "It's such an elderly population here, and it's such a service that is needed, that I know our facility would do its very best not to close."
Leibrand said reductions in Medicare in 1988 led her office to be cut back to a staff of two — herself and an in-home aide — who perform all the administrative work in addition to their house calls.
She said that many patients' homes are at least 20 miles away. And some require multiple visits per week, for an average of two months.
"Home care agencies in rural areas are being pushed to the brink," said Val Halamandaris, president of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC). "We've been entrusted with the care of these people for whom there is no other way to care for them."
The NAHC released a paper at the end of June estimating that home care nurses traveled 4.8 billion miles in 2006 to be with patients, an amount they say is more than double the 2 billion miles driven by UPS drivers to make deliveries.
They are currently pushing a measure before Congress that calls for a 5 percent increase in the amount rural health care providers are compensated for driving.
That measure is part of the Preserving Access to Medicare Act of 2008 currently before the Senate. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the measure will cost $200 million during the next fiscal year.
