About Home Care in Arizona

The State of Regulations of the In-Home Care Industry in Arizona

There is no regulatory oversight for the non-medical home care industry in Arizona. However, there are new labor laws, initiatives and regulations that impact the non-medical home care industry. That means that in Arizona it is truly the wild west of home care, so buyer beware.

Since 2007 Don Irish, President of Family Home Care, has been one of the leaders in the non-medical home care industry to try to get some oversight of the industry. An example of reasonable oversight is making it a requirement that the owners of in-home care businesses are not felons and that caregivers have criminal background checks performed prior to placement with clients.

The only oversight of in-home care companies that has been enacted is Arizona SB 14011, Home Care Services; Disclosure, discussed in Button 2, below.

Currently, the industry has stepped back from its efforts to get the State Legislature to enact regulatory oversight of the in-home care industry. To a large part because of how other States have enacted burdensome regulation over the in-home care industry that have proven to be costly for consumers and the industry alike. The consensus is that no one wants a bureaucrat that has no idea what in-home care services are, regulating and telling consumers and the industry what it must do and what it can or can't do for clients. Currently the delivery of in-home care services works in Arizona and the adage is if it isn't broke we don't need to fix it seems to be working.

There are other factors that are directly driving up the cost of in-home care services. Arizona is experiencing people from other States trying to change how business is conducted in Arizona with purported "good intentions" that have a detrimental effect on business. They are trying to and succeeding in getting "feel-good" laws passed under the pretense of better workers' rights and with no regard to the adverse impact these changes will have on the elderly and vulnerable who are consumers of in-home care services. These new laws directly impact and increase the cost of doing business for in-home care companies, causing increases in costs to consumers for in-home care services. Additionally, the US Department of Labor changed the regulations for caregiver overtime pay, which has a significant impact on the cost and delivery of in-home care services. These issues are discussed below in Buttons 2, 3 and 4.

Arizona SB 1401, Home Care Services; Disclosure Statement

The only result of all of Don Irish's and associate's efforts for regulatory oversight has been to get SB 1401 signed into law by Governor Ducey April 1, 2015.  This is a consumer protection law that requires, on an annual basis, all nonmedical in-home caregiver businesses in Arizona to disclose to consumers information about background checks (whether or not the company does them), cost of services, hiring and firing policies, what kind of training, if any, caregivers are required to have, who to contact if there is a complaint, and how much the company is charging the different services they provide.

Failure to provide consumers with the disclosures is a Class 3 misdemeanor and carries a maximum 30-day sentence. The Attorney General office enforces SB 1401.

It is important to note that the driving force behind this law and energy to get this passed came about because of the sustained direct efforts of Don Irish, Family Home Care, Bob Roth, Cypress Home Care and Michael Sumner, Beach Health Services.

See a copy of Family Home Care's In-Home Care Disclosure Form by clicking on the Button below:

                                                                 FHC Disclosure Form

New Overtime Law Changes Effecting Our Caregivers

On September 1, 2015, the Department of Labor enacted revisions to the overtime pay regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that affect caregivers. Prior to this, the FLSA specifically exempted caregivers from overtime pay. The new regulations require caregiver employees to be compensated at one-and-one-half (1 1/2) times the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a work week.

This change in the overtime regulations created a staffing nightmare for in-home care companies. The intention of the change was so that caregivers could get paid more in a work week because until the change many caregivers always worked more than 40 hours in a work week. However, the opposite has happened. Consumers of in-home care services can ill afford to pay for a caregiver's overtime so caregivers are limited to working 40 hours a work week. In-home care companies hire more caregivers to work to ensure caregivers don't work overtime. Overall caregivers working for a company have experienced a 10% -30%, or more, decrease in weekly wages when working for just one home care company. What caregivers now do is work for multiple in-home care companies 30 to 40 hours at each one in order to make what they were prior to the FLSA overtime change.

One of the real consequence of eliminating the overtime exemption for caregivers is that has driven up the cost of care to the consumers of in-home care services. If a caregiver works any overtime hours that cost will be directly passed on to the consumer.

Arizona Minimum Wage Changes Effecting Caregivers

In Arizona, the Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Time Off Initiative, also known as Proposition 206, passed. The paid sick time component of the law went into effect July 1, 2017. The raising of the Arizona minimum wage component of this bill raised minimum wages from $8.05 per hour to $10.00 per hour effective January 1, 2017. In addition, the minimum wage will increase annually until it reaches $12.00 an hour.

The increase in minimum wages each year will result in an automatic increase in the cost of in-home care services each year. An increase in the hourly wages costs a company substantially more money to be in business. Here are the reasons why:

Paid Sick Time Off Initiative, Part of Proposition 206

The Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Time Off Initiative that passed had a new employee entitlement, a paid sick time component of the law that went into effect July 1, 2017,

Employees will now accrue sick time based on hours worked and be entitled to up to 3 sick days off per year with pay.

With the passage and implementation of this law came mandatory posting, reporting and associated documentation requirements that are costly to implement and maintain. In addition, this is a significant additional new and ongoing cost to in-home care businesses. These additional new costs get factored into the
cost of services to consumers, yet again causing the prices for home care services to increase.