An industry that’s no stranger to government scrutiny and suspicion has the promise of more oversight … and costs. DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently proposed expanding the reach of its minimum-wage and overtime requirements to cover more home health care and other home care workers – the folks who work with the elderly and the infirm.
Proposed rule on the exemption for companionship and live-in domestic services.
DOL fact sheet with proposed changes to companionship and live-in worker rules.
Some eldercare workers fall under the FLSA's "companionship exemption" provision, but under the proposed rule, third-party employers (such as health care staffing agencies) could not claim the exemption – only direct hires by families could trigger a valid claim for it.
Here, healthcare and employee benefit attorney Cynthia Marcotte Stamer alerts the home health industry (a business line that has certainly got the government’s enforcement attention): The feds are on your trail again, with a rash of investigations and restitutions. She writes:
The proposed tightening of regulations for home health workers follows a general toughening by WHD of its regulation and enforcement of wage and hour laws in the health care industry.