The National Association for Home Care & Hospice and the Home Care Association of America, which released a joint report about the workforce crisis in March, have their eyes on several pieces of proposed legislation that would combat the problem.

At a webinar earlier this month, HCAOA CEO Vicki Hoak highlighted proposed legislation that the two groups are working on that would have major implications for direct care workers. The bills in question are the HCBS Access Act, Better Care Better Jobs Act, Homecare for Seniors Act and the Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act.

As a hopeful sign, the needs of the home care workforce have caught the attention of President Biden, who in April issued an executive order to expand access to home care.

“Never before have we seen a sitting president talk about home care, not only in the State of the Union address, but in many public venues,” Hoak said. “This is just indicative of Congress and even state legislatures responding to the needs of their constituents.”

During the webinar, Hoak and NAHC Executive Director of Private Duty Home Care Kristen Wheeler discussed details from the report — which recommended making the onboarding process for direct care workers easier and securing pilot loan forgiveness programs for nurses at all levels as solutions to the worker crisis. 

“We all know that we’re in a long-term care crisis in this country, and we know that home care is one of the main solutions,” Hoakd said.

Transcend Strategy Group President and CEO Stephanie Johnston, who joined Hoak and Wheeler, described the challenges facing the direct care workforce.

“We’re facing double headwinds here as an industry,” she said. “Not only is there a shortage of the number of people available to work, we’re also facing some pretty significant perception challenges when it comes to these roles we are attempting to fill.

Johnston discussed a 2022 survey that Transcend Strategy Group in collaboration with NAHC took that found that “about a third” of the available workforce in care delivery would be interested in careers in home care.

“When we survey the clinical care workforce, we hear this theme: a dwindling number of people express overt interest in careers at home,” she said.