Home Health Care Providers Worry State Might Force Them Out Of Business
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Time is running out to get Texas on a straight financial track for the next two years.
There are just 66 days left in the State Legislative session.
As lawmakers struggle to balance the state budget, home health care providers and even nursing homes fear deep cuts could force them out of business.
"Right now there is a proposed cut as far as Medicaid is concerned through the CCP program that involves therapy and nursing," said Toby Price of Pediatric Home Healthcare in Dallas. "It's a ten percent cut that would basically wipe out home healthcare as it is now."
That would not only impact jobs within the healthcare industry, but could mean thousands of chronically ill children and adults could no longer qualify for the same type of care they currently receive.
"Home health is my only option," said Amanda Thomison, whose 11-year-old daughter Paige requires 24/7 home health care. "If Paige wasn't kept at home with her nursing care with home health care, and she had to be institutionalized, she would probably survive for a month."
Within the first year of her life, Paige was diagnosed with Hurler-Scheie Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder marked by progressive deterioration and dwarfism, among other characteristics.
At age four, she was taken to the emergency room with symptoms of a foodborne illness. During treatment, Paige went into respiratory arrest and suffered a traumatic hypoxic-anoxic brain injury--basically, her brain didn't get enough oxygen. She is now a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator.
"She maxed out health insurance, three policies, there was no availability to even insure her on private insurance," said Thomison, a single mother who also works in the health care industry. " So Medicaid was the only option."
Medicaid has always covered Paige's home healthcare which is required around the clock, but that could soon change if the state legislature approves proposed budget cuts.
"She would be in an institution, possibly a hospital, and away from the comfort of her home and her family," said Price, whose company cares for Paige, "and that's what we're worried about."
The proposed cuts to therapy and nursing funding would force a lot of home health care agencies out of business, Price said.
"It would be catastrophic," he explained, "we wouldn't be able to survive."
"It would not only eliminate all the therapy companies, the nursing companies, it would eliminate all the jobs those companies would provide to physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists," said Julie Golightly, the Director of Patient Care Services for Pediatric Home Healthcare. "We would all lose our jobs. And then all the kids we take care of--who would take care of them?"
Thomison fears her daughter wouldn't survive either.
"It would be a death sentence," she said, "I'm not going to send my daughter away because the costs have been cut to where I can't take care of her."
The state budget proposal is expected to go to the house floor for a vote on April 1.
Golightly and other home health care administrators are urging the public to take a stand and contact their representative.
You can find out who represents you at www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.
"I feel sorry for our senators and our representatives. They have a very hard job ahead of them they have to find the money and they have to find it somewhere." Golightly said. "We're just asking them not to make that ten percent cut to our services, ultimately it will cost the state a lot more money if they take our services away."
