Help at Home Commends Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Office of Long-Term Living Release of HCBS Rate and Wage Study
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEBRUARY 19, 2025
Help at Home supports 10,000 Pennsylvania-based Personal Assistants (PAs), who are relentlessly focused on helping Pennsylvania seniors and disabled populations live with independence and dignity in their homes. We commend Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services’ Office of Long-Term Living (OLTL) for releasing the Home and Community Services Rate and Wage Study. This important report highlights the dramatic wage disparity of the current Personal Assistance rates, recognizing that adjustments would be appropriate to bring them in line with market benchmarks.
Personal Assistants provide critical in-home care services to Pennsylvania’s aging and physically disabled residents, especially those with chronic complex care needs, enabling them to remain in their homes, avoiding costly institutionalization. Despite the significant role of PAs in our Pennsylvania communities, the state struggles to recruit and retain this critical workforce due to stagnant fee schedules, which fail to reflect the ongoing changes in the cost of delivery of home care services. The study confirms Personal Assistance Services (PAS) reimbursement rates are consistently lower than those of comparison states. OLTL recommends a 23 percent rate increase, which is necessary to provide adequate funding. We look forward to partnering with the legislature and the Governor’s team as they work urgently to identify a path to address the significant rate gaps identified in this study.
About Help at Home
Help at Home is the leading national provider of high-quality home care services offering innovative programs designed to help seniors and underserved complex chronic populations remain healthy in their homes. As of September 2024, Help at Home operated more than 200 branch locations across 11 states and provided in-home personal care and integrated care management services to approximately 67,000 clients with the help of more than 58,000 highly trained and compassionate caregivers. Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Help at Home has 50 years of operating experience in the home care industry, including over a decade in Pennsylvania.