Home-care Rising

Home-care Rising

Trends by Rod Thomson | Contributing Writer

Take Care of Sarasota is the largest private-duty, home healthcare provider in Southwest Florida. Its founder and owner, Susanne Wise, started the company 11 years ago with four employees. Today, she has 600 employees working out of three offices. About 550 of those are field staff that go into homes and care for people so they do not need to be placed in a facility. About 150 are RNs and LPNs, while the rest are home-health aides.

The company's clientele ranges from 60 to more than 100 years old. Most are in their 80s and 90s. While Take Care of Sarasota provides basic home health care, it also offers insurance services that help the elderly wind their way through the increasingly complex maze of insurance issues. The company even incorporates housekeeping services to maximize value to its clients.

"We're busy all year round," Wise says. "There is no slow time. It gets busy and busier," Wise said.

Wise is a registered nurse with a bachelor's degree from Western Michigan University and an MBA from Nova Southeast University in Fort Lauderdale. She may run a growing company of 600 employees, but Wise doesn't even have an office. When not out visiting clients, she uses a desk with the bustling administrative employees at the firm's Bee Ridge Road headquarters. Wise spoke to us about some of the latest trends she sees in health care. Here's an edited transcript of that conversation:

What trends do you see impacting the home health care industry?

One thing I've noticed in the past 11 years is the increase in knowledge in the clientele base.

Clients are much more savvy and much more discriminating about their choices about their own health care about the services they receive, which I think is wonderful. It makes our job easier, dealing with people who have more understanding.

I think the long-term care insurance portion is going to grow tremendously. What we had seen were a minimal number of people who had long-term care. What we're seeing now is a tremendous number of clients who not only have it but also understand how to use it and the value of it.

We have an entire department that handles long-term care insurance, which is definitely a trend for us. The demand for services is going to increase, and there will be an issue for personnel.

Personnel. So how does the current, tight labor market impact your company?

Our turnover is roughly 22% annually. I will tell you, for the industry that is exceptionally low. The industry averages 40% to 50% for private agencies. Maintaining quality employees is not so much of an issue.

Certainly as the growth continues, acquiring new employees is certainly an issue, and the youth is a concern.

Our employee base tends to be middle to older age, and that is always a concern because when you are in a home setting, you work alone. You have to be physically capable of the lifts and transfers. In a facility, you have three staff that can help you.

It will continue to be a challenge, not so much to find employees as it is to find quality employees.

Are there any warning signs, danger signals, you see out there for the industry or this community?

The positive thing in long-term care is that as a nation we are beginning to recognize the need. For years there has been conversation about the need for the baby boomers, and we have all just sat back.

But it is going to hit us like a ton of bricks in the next 12 to 15 years. People are beginning to acknowledge there is going to be a crisis. Being creative about how we provide care is the trend.

We try to minimize what they need, and yet keep them safe, thereby keeping their costs down and minimizing our personnel hours and providing care for more clients.

An example of this is most companies provide four hours and nothing less than that. We provide as little as an hour, an hour and a half, and that conserves the clients' cost base and our employee hours.

Our premise is we only want to provide what service they need. So we like to cut back and say if you only need one and a half hours, we'll only do one and a half.

The trend of the type of equipment we will see in home health will be changing in the future so that clients who could only be cared for in a facility, could now be in a home setting.

Are there other danger signs?

The cost of workman's comp is a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous cost. The best way to deal with workman's comp is to create a very rigid, safe setting for your employees. Workman's comp is going to be a major issue going forward.

If you could change anything in the way things are, what would you change?

Workman's comp.

If life were perfect, I would change our inability to service a lot of clients who have a need but no financial ability to pay. That's very, very hard . . . It's heart-wrenching.

They have no funds, no insurance. They have every right to get care at home, but they did not anticipate or did not have an option. I think it's unfortunate our system would rather send them to a facility.

Also, in an ideal world, I wish families were more supportive of their elders. I think we should value them.

What do you see on the horizon?

The future is a re-designed home setting so there is a setting where a parent can come into the home, have privacy and not be completely invasive and yet be close.

Maybe bringing someone into the home that provides elder care and child care, with a lot of parents being professionals. There is nothing more pleasing than seeing the young and old mixed together.

We're going to see much more focus on gerontology.

WHAT'S AHEAD

IN HOME HEALTH

Take Care Sarasota CEO Susanne Wise sees these trends in the health care industry:

• Long-term care insurance "is going to grow tremendously," she says. "We're seeing a tremendous number of clients who not only have it but also understand how to use it."

• Finding employees is not as much of a challenge as finding quality employees.

• "The trend of the type of equipment we will see in home health will be changing in the future so that clients who could only be cared for in a facility, could now be in a home setting.

• The cost of workers' comp insurance "is going to be a major issue going forward."

• "We're going to see much more focus on gerontology."