Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided against hearing a case, Home Care Association of America et al. v. Weil, in which a new Department of Labor rule was challenged as it requires minimum wages and overtime pay for home healthcare workers, Modern Healthcare reported.
- The rule, which became effective in October 2015, will continue to be enforced though it only applies to workers who are employed by third parties like home healthcare agencies.
- The Labor Department released the long-awaited overtime pay rule in May that raised the exempt threshold to $47,476 annually from $23,660.
Dive Insight:
Associations in the home care industry argued extending the overtime and minimum rules to the millions of home health workers in the U.S. would cause the cost of care to increase, which would in turn dampen patients' access to care and destabilize the industry.
For decades, home care workers were seen as "companion" workers, exempting them from the standard overtime and minimum wage rules that are standard for most domestic workers, as noted by Home Health Care News.
"Our efforts to ensure that the elderly and persons with disabilities have full access to home care will continue," Val J. Halamandaris, president of the National Association of Home Care & Hospice said in blog post in response to the Supreme Court's decision.