Dear Adult Family Home Council Member,
We need your help to demand fair pay for adult family home providers. On March 29th an email was sent to members containing important information about completing a cost reporting survey.
We have been sharing information with our members about this important survey we will be conducting to collect information about the true cost of adult family home services. The information this survey provides will help us in our advocacy efforts in collective bargaining and with the legislature. This information will also help AFH Council members to measure the cost per day per resident. Knowing this information will help providers to be more successful in establishing Medicaid policies and business plans.
The accounting firm of Wipfli LLP is collecting the information on a secure server. Your information, along with all other member adult family homes, will be collected and compiled to provide very important information about the actual costs of operating an adult family home. The information you provide in the survey is vitally important to allow your leadership to be the voice and communicate the true costs of an adult family home in the State of Washington. Leadership at DSHS believes that $50 a day is reasonable, we must show them it is not.
At this link, you will find a copy of the survey. Please use it to help you gather the information needed to complete the online survey. On the last two pages of the document are definitions and examples of the information that should be included in each line of the survey. Click here to review the information to be collected in the survey.
Around April 5th, you will be sent an email from Wipfli LLP containing a secure link to the online survey, allowing you to enter information about your adult family home. The link is unique to your home and can only be used by you, the owner.
If you did not receive an email on March 29th and want to participate in the survey please contact us.
If you will be completing a survey for more than one adult family home in your organization, you will need to have a separate email address for each home. If you use only one email address for your group of adult family homes, please contact Melanie Mick with Wipfli LLP at 1‐866-766-1340 to discuss submitting information for additional homes.
We would like to thank you for participating in this important survey and encourage you to review the information we have attached to help you prepare to submit your information online next week.
6 Responses
Can’t pay for staff, Let alone operate an adult family home with all the costs out there food, electricity, care providers, taxes, insurance, and the list just goes on. There should be no one excepting less than $100 a day. Maybe our state people who come up with these crazy plans should try working
My exact feelings….I truly know our licensors have no working understanding of what it takes to operate the business.
Providers need to keep the pressure on for better rates. The power is shifting your direction especially if you continue to unite and stand your ground.
The hospital discharge planners are finding it more difficult to place State pay clients and iI have seen them go back to the DSHS social workers pressing them for higher rates for their clients so they can discharge them from the hospital. I have 2 cases with this situation right now neither the hospital or our agency can find placement for due to such a low daily rate.
We did this a long time ago in our business. Every business owner should know the costs. We calculated we need a $110 per day per resident to break even. We do not work for free so we obviously require more than that to move in.
We all know the rates are grossly inadequate. Please, providers, take the time to fill out the survey and provide some objective facts to arm the AFHC and our community with the evidence needed to advocate for some real change. We don’t want to see our frail adults on the streets and stacked in emergency rooms because they can’t be cared for in a good Adult Family Home.
I have a resident who returned from rehab after a spinal fracture due to a fall. The assessment rate didn’t increase, even though she requires closer supervision to use her walker at all times. At night she gets up to the toilet up to 6 times a night, requiring an alert person to be in her room to remind her to take walker. They “tried” to increase the rate, but came up with less than what the cost would be for an 8 hour/night staff (for this purpose alone), let alone the room/board/assistance costs.
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