Potential home health care crises

NH Business: Potential home health care crisis

Fred Kocher is joined by Borja Alvarez de Toledo to discuss how Waypoint can avoid a July 1 shutdown of their home care services



Welcome to New Hampshire’s Business. I’m Fred Coker following up on *** story by news nine last week, one of New Hampshire’s largest and oldest human service and child charitable organizations is facing *** potential crisis. Here’s *** statement from my guest organization, we’re starting *** crisis and we need help. We’re staring down *** crisis and we need help. And here’s another statement directly to New Hampshire’s Business. This means that on July 1st, we’d have to end our home care services CFI to hundreds of seniors and people with disabilities across the state. Now, this is, what way point does they serve an average of 8000 New Hampshire residents *** year at 16 sites across New Hampshire services include home health care, including home care for older adults, Children with developmental and medical conditions, mental health counseling on house youth and so forth. You can see the rest with me to describe uh the crisis facing way point is its president Ceo Bora Alvarez de Toledo. Welcome Barra. thank you Nice to have you here and for having this topic, which is an important one these days. Yeah. Yeah. So um crisis, what’s going on and what’s the potential impact. So, um as you said, choices for independent programs that serve, um you know, seniors over 65 adults with disabilities, we have been underfunded for 10 years to the tone of 100 and $53 million according to this, that is *** lot of, and we are really unable to continue to provide their services if we don’t get *** significant rate increase that catches up. We’re talking about Medicaid. This is *** Medicaid program. Yes. And the choice for independence, what it means is these individuals uh meet criteria for being in, in *** nursing home, but they actually choose to be home and receive the services of home because of the act, the outcomes are actually much better when they stay in the home and, and CFI stands for Choices for Independence also care services for the elderly in particular. Right. Exactly. Yes. Yes, that is the service. Now, I should note that way. Point has service sites in Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Dover, Rochester, Estrada, Laconia King, Lancaster and Conway. So it’s *** statewide way. Yeah. Um there’s staffing shortages across the entire health care spectrum. Um and that affects you big time, I assume it’s very significant, as I said because the rate of reimbursement that we get from the state is so low, what we end up paying as an average to our very dedicated workers is $13. So we cannot compete with retail, we cannot compete with the fast food industry, which pays $ 15 and provides better benefits. Let’s go back to the legislature for *** minute. What is pending in the legislature that would solve your crisis? So there is money that has been put, uh, to increase the rates for Medicaid services. The House put, um, 100 and $45 million and the Senate actually cut that to 1 20 we don’t think with 1 20 we’re going to be able to operate where you have to cut services, we will have to shut down, shutdown. We cannot continue. We’ve been subsidizing this program with $700,000. How many years have you been in business? Oh, I mean, the agency since 18 50 but this service about 40 or 50 years, it was formerly *** New Hampshire Child and Family Services. It was now it’s way point. Um, of all the services you offer, which particular ones are most in need right now are growing. So we are experiencing growth in *** lot of the Children who are served by DC Y F. Um There’s an increase of kids that um have experienced abuse and neglect and we get *** lot of referrals. Certainly after the pandemic, we noticed an increase also in youth who were experiencing homelessness because the houses where they used to couch surf just shut down because it was not safe and they ended up sleeping on the streets. So several areas we were experiencing growth. But choices for independence is also experiencing growth because right now the population is in New Hampshire and you know that, that because you’ve had it in your program, 19% is 65 older in 2030 is going to be 27. When the nursing homes are full up, the nursing home can hire in their capacity. So if we were to shut down the *** central care alliance and say the two agencies that are doing this um advocacy effort, it would be about 500 seniors that would need to be served by nurses have to leave it there. Borja Alvarez de Toledo. Thank you, President and CEO of wait point. Thank you, appreciate having you here. Now, if you missed part of this briefing, you go to WMU dot com where it will be posted today and all this week. And finally, as *** veterans on this memorial day weekend, I salute the veterans who are watching. Thank you for your service.

NH Business: Potential home health care crisis

Fred Kocher is joined by Borja Alvarez de Toledo to discuss how Waypoint can avoid a July 1 shutdown of their home care services

One of New Hampshire’s largest and oldest human service and children’s charitable organizations is facing a potential crisis. Waypoint serves an average of 8,000 New Hampshire residents per year across 16 sites. Now, underfunding could force Waypoint to shut down some essential services. On the latest installment of NH Business, host Fred Kocher is joined by Borja Alvarez de Toledo, president and CEO of Waypoint. The two discuss the problems Waypoint is facing, and what can be done to prevent a July 1 shutdown of their home care services.

One of New Hampshire’s largest and oldest human service and children’s charitable organizations is facing a potential crisis. Waypoint serves an average of 8,000 New Hampshire residents per year across 16 sites. Now, underfunding could force Waypoint to shut down some essential services.

On the latest installment of NH Business, host Fred Kocher is joined by Borja Alvarez de Toledo, president and CEO of Waypoint. The two discuss the problems Waypoint is facing, and what can be done to prevent a July 1 shutdown of their home care services.