http://goo.gl/pkBeI1
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued a new rule that affects home care services for people with disabilities and seniors. This rule may impact some of your state’s long term care programs, particularly your state’s “consumer-directed” programs, where
the person receiving services can hire his/her own worker (oftentimes family members or close friends) and direct the care the worker provides.
The rule narrows the types of home care workers who are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) minimum wage and overtime requirements, meaning more home care workers will be entitled to these protections. Some states, however, may consider
actions that would technically bring them into compliance with the new rule but would undermine its goals and could lead to cuts in critical community services for consumers, workforce shortages, and even the abandoning of the consumer-directed programs for
which people with disabilities and seniors have long fought. Consumers and advocates must take immediate action to make sure that your state is ready to implement this new rule in a way that helps and does not harm people with disabilities and seniors and their home care workers.