Dew-Anne Langcaon, CEO of Honolulu-based Vivia Cares, Inc., says that the home care industry is made up of a lot of small businesses — businesses that are driven by owners wanting to help seniors at home.
“Consequently, when it’s a lot of small businesses, we tend to not have any organization, no way to speak as an industry with one voice,” she told Aloha State Daily. “And right now, with health care in the chaos that it’s going through, [there’s] an increased emphasis on helping people stay out of the hospital, stay out of expensive institutional care and stay in the home. The home care agency is becoming a much more important part of the continuum of care, but we don’t have a way to plug into the formal health systems to look at the advocacy, when we’re talking about new Medicaid rules and new Medicare rules.”
Local home care providers can now find support from the Home Care Association of America, or HCAOA, a nationwide a trade association for private-duty home care providers that recently established a new chapter in Hawai‘i.
Founded more than two decades ago in Indianapolis, the organization supports nearly 4,500 home care agencies across the country, a recent announcement noted.
“Now with a local chapter, home care agencies in Hawai‘i have direct access to HCAOA resources and a platform to collaborate on best practices, workforce development and quality care initiatives to enhance care for Hawai‘i families,” the announcement reads.
Langcaon, along with Cecilia Fong, administrator of Griswold Home Care; Cory Kataoka, Director of BAYADA Home Health Care; and Jenny Cambra, director of operations at Senior Helpers, joined forces to start the Hawai‘i chapter.
“The Home Care Association of America is a very large organization nationwide and it’s specific to home care, which is why it really resonated with us,” says Langcaon, who serves as chair of the Hawai‘i chapter.
Home care, the non-medical support provided to a senior in their home, is different from home health, Langcaon explained. Home care providers can aid with things like showering, meals, medications or taking an individual to doctor appointments.
It’s generally not covered by Medicare, she says, as opposed to home health, which offers more professional skilled services — such as registered nurses, physical therapy or occupational therapy — provided in-home after a hospitalization.
Home health, she says, has been “part of the health care ecosystem for decades” and those providers are typically large organizations, “but home care has generally been a small business activity.”
Langcaon says there are about 14,000 small home care agencies nationwide that support seniors living at home. There are 138 licensed home care agencies in the Islands, according to the state Department of Health Office of Health Care Assurance.
“Things are changing very rapidly as society is aging and the home care agencies have to understand the political and regulatory landscape that’s changing very rapidly in our community and nationwide,” she says. “But as a small business owner, generally, you don’t have the time or attention to keep track of all those things, and that’s really the goal of this association — to help the small business owners keep track of what’s changing in the landscape and what are some of the other opportunities and regulations that might be coming down their way.”
Franchises, for example, have more corporate-level support to help them keep up with the changes in an evolving industry, Langcaon says, but solo practitioners or small business owners don’t have the same kind of resources.
“There [are] so many changes swirling around. It’s very difficult to be a small business person on an island trying to just do good work, so we’re hoping people will join the organization.”
She echoed those sentiments when asked about the benefits of joining.
“I think the main issue is so many things are changing around their world that, as a small business owner, you can’t just put your head in the sand,” Langcaon says. “It’s going to affect your business. We’re trying to make it easy for them to stay in touch, keep abreast of the issues so that they can be nimble and that their business can continue to thrive in a very rapidly changing environment.”
An inaugural chapter conference for home care providers statewide will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, at Dave & Buster’s Ala Moana, and will include a federal legislative and regulatory update, panel discussion about the state of home care in Hawai‘i with officials from Medicaid, Veterans Affairs and the state Office of Aging, a caregiver panel discussion and more.
Advanced registration is required — do so here. The cost is $150 for HCAOA members and $250 for non-members.
Learn more about or join the HCAOA Hawai‘i chapter here.
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
