Imagine yourself as one of the more than 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day. Now imagine having to choose between a nursing home and at-home care. And consider this: 20 hours of in-home services (a week) costs about $18,000 a year versus an average of $70,000 a year for a nursing home.
For many aging Baby Boomers today, this is no hypothetical situation. It is very real. That is why, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of in-home health and personal care aides is expected to reach 1.3 million by 2020 – a 70% increase from 2010. In comparison, the growth rate for the U.S. job market as a whole during that period is 14%.
Explaining this growth spurt for non-medical services is fairly straightforward. Entering the field of unskilled at-home care is easy in that it requires less education with little to no medical qualifications. Consequently, carriers like Atain Insurance Companies have taken steps to address this trend by breaking down home health into two pieces: skilled medical care where you have a nurse or therapist come in and take care of the client, and unskilled non-medical care where people go in and do basic services like cooking, cleaning and grooming. That’s the area where we’ll see a good amount of growth. Typically insurance policy for home care covers skilled and unskilled workers, and if you only provide an unskilled workers services, your insurance premium will be lower.
How to lower your professional liability exposures:
- Perform background checks including criminal on each of your new hires;
- Contact each potential employee’s or contractor’s references;
- Perform a “pre-care” interview of each client, their family or legal guardian to assess specific needs and adequately match them up with the most appropriate caregiver;
- If providing some incidental transportation:
– Order and review MVRs for all employees and contractors providing transportation services on your behalf - Require that employees and contractors that provide transportation services on your behalf maintain their own auto insurance at limits of $100k or higher;
- Train all employees on proper procedures when reporting incidents;
- Instruct all employees to report any visual observations regarding the clients health or well-being;
- Develop a procedure for emergency situations while providing services to clients.
The implementation of these bullet points will protect you you from costly gaps in coverage.