As president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), Bill Dombi is typically the one giving out awards. He recently became a recipient as only the second winner of BAYADA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Former BAYADA CEO and founder Mark Baiada was the first.
Dombi is proud to be in the company of Baiada.
“BAYADA is one of the standard-setting companies in healthcare services at home,” Dombi told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. “Mark Baiada is someone I’ve known for years and I have tremendous respect for him. He’s an icon in healthcare at home that’s inventive, creative and patient-centered. To be in his company is really a great honor.”
With 40 years of experience in healthcare law and policy, Dombi, who was part of the expansion of the Medicare home health benefit in 1980 and the formation of the hospice benefit in 1983, was drawn to home care because it allowed him to serve a vulnerable demographic. As he puts it, everybody loves an underdog story. The field has grown considerably since he first began and he takes pleasure in the successes it has enjoyed in those four decades.
“When I started doing this work, home care certainly fit into the category of being an underdog,” said Dombi, a lawyer by training. “From a professional perspective, whether it’s the litigation, the policy work, the lobbying or the education side of all of that, it feels good to work for David rather than Goliath. That underdog aspect of it gives you that little extra bit of energy.”
While there may have been a recent setback with the Medicare cuts contained in the calendar year 2024 home health final rule, Dombi believes persistence is crucial toward future progress. He cites his experiences in advocacy as reason for hope, specifically NAHC’s influence on Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who introduced legislation allowing non-physician nurse practitioners to order home health services. While the advocacy for this bill started in 2007, the legislation finally passed 2020.
Sometimes David needs to wait for the right moment to fire off his slingshot.
“We stuck with it and it finally crossed the finish line — great policy that should have been passed in the first year,” Dombi explained. “This is something that’s part and parcel with advocacy. We don’t have time to be disheartened. We’ve just got to keep rolling up our sleeves and working. You don’t give up.”
Home Sweet Home is a feature appearing Mondays in McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. The story focuses on a heartwarming, entertaining or quirky happening affecting the world of home care. If you have a topic that might be worthy of the spotlight in Home Sweet Home, please email Special Projects Coordinator Foster Stubbs at [email protected].
