Dive Brief:
- Recent actions by federal agencies and courts will have a direct impact on employers in the health care industry.
- The healthcare law firm of Epstein Becker Green explores the five top recent developments that healthcare employers face, ranging from doctors, unions and protected activity to marijuana in the workplace.
- In each of the five areas, Epstein Becker Green attorneys outline the issue along with a fairly extensive outlook for each. Apart from unionization and pot in the workplace, other areas include new minimum wage and OT exemptions for home health companionship and live-in care employees of third-party providers, OSHA enforcement within nursing homes and inpatient facilities, and the NLRB's new test for what constitutes a "joint employer" status.
Dive Insight:
The article is extensive. For example, the article explains that due to a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a new DOL requirement that home health care providers pay the federal minimum wage and overtime to employees providing companionship services and live-in domestic services took effect in late October 2015.
Although DOL has announced that it would exercise “prosecutorial discretion” through the end of 2015, depending on "good faith" efforts to comply, the new regulations will be immediately enforceable by private individuals and attorneys, so the DOL’s action is of little practical significance.
The article advises home health care employers who are lagging to begin planning for this transition immediately. Although, the article notes, many most likely already pay the federal minimum wage to individuals providing companionship services (often called “home health aides”), many do not pay overtime. Providers will have to explain to both employees and customers that the new regulations effectively require them—as well as their competitors—to limit the number of hours that an employee works and use additional employees to fill the gaps.
