Visiting nurses and other home health workers care for the elderly, the sick and the disabled, traveling from home to home to deliver hands-on, personalized care. In these days of shorter hospital stays, patients are sent home relatively quickly after acute illnesses and surgeries, and these patients need specialized and timely care in order to support their safe return to the community. 

As gas prices in the U.S. climb towards $4.00 per gallon across the country, agencies that rely on mobile staff to perform home visits are having a more difficult time recruiting nurses and home health aides. According to an article on Fosters.com (Rochester, NY), even a nominal increase in the federal mileage reimbursement rate (from 50 cents to 58 cents per mile) is not making enough of a dent in the cost of gas for home health nurses and other staff. And with home care agencies paying out more of their budgets in mileage reimbursement to their nurses and aides, profits decrease,  and the likelihood of improved pay and benefits for home care workers also decreases exponentially. Add the insult of a 2.75% decrease in the payments being made by Medicare to home health agencies since January of this year, and a recipe for disaster is brewing.

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) released a study in June calculating that nurses, therapists and other home health workers in the U.S. travel approximately 5 billion miles per year in order to provide 428 million visits to approximately 12 million patients. Due to these excessive miles of travel coupled with increased  costs, it is no wonder that many communities, patients, agencies, and home care workers are suffering the consequences.

In terms of the delivery of home health care in rural communities, ABC News recently reported that some agencies that service rural patients have truly taken the brunt of rising gas prices and decreased Medicare reimbursements for home health care services. Unfortunately, it seems that some remote areas of the country are no longer being serviced by home health agencies, leaving many families with difficult decisions and some patients living in nursing homes prematurely. 

As home health agencies grapple with increased costs and attrition of nurses to other specialty areas less hard hit by soaring gas prices, predictions abound that some home health agencies will close their doors for good.  

Visiting nurses and other home health care providers keep many community members healthy and safe in their homes, with families providing a large part of the daily hands-on care. It would be a shame if more patients end up in nursing homes as a consequence of something as volatile as gasoline prices, but we are seeing that this current economic climate leaves few industries and few segments of society unscathed by the boiling waters of inflation.

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NurseKeith is a writer, blogger, nurse and consultant. Feel free to visit his blog, Digital Doorway .  

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