Accurate Home Care (@AccurateHmCare) recently increased compensation for its nurses in the private duty nursing line by an average of nearly 20 percent following an increase in reimbursement rates from the State of Minnesota.
“We belong to the Minnesota Home Care Association (MHCA) and worked hard on grassroots legislative efforts to get these increases,” says Nicoleen Meyer, Accurate’s VP of Clinical Services who also serves as an MHCA board member. “We’re very happy to pass them along to our caregivers to move us a bit closer toward paying what’s appropriate for the level of care that we’re providing out there.”
State legislation passed last year authorized an increase in compensation for nearly 20,000 health care workers statewide.
“As you know, our compensation at Accurate is based entirely upon the reimbursement rates that we receive from the state and from insurance companies. When there is an increase such as what the state just provided, we strive to pass along to our employees every penny of it,” says Accurate CEO Bill English. “We need to retain part of these increases, though, to cover state and federally mandated withholdings, as well as rising operational and administrative costs.”
Those withholdings are for payroll taxes, FICA (Social Security and Medicare Tax) and workers compensation insurance, and they are based upon a percentage of an employee’s overall gross compensation. When that compensation increases, so must the amounts allocated to these withholdings.
A smaller percentage of the state’s increased compensation goes toward covering Accurate’s rising operational costs in areas such as real estate taxes (they doubled from 2023 to 2024); Safe and Sick time coverage, and PTO for all employees, no matter how many hours they work.
It also helps fund a much-needed pay increase for office and administrative employees this year, “which is well deserved by our dedicated and professional staff in our home office,” English says.
Squeezing every penny possible to pass along to employees is no easy task, Meyer adds. “That conversation might begin with Bill, but it includes so many others here on the leadership team. And our HR department, clinical managers, staffing coordinators and recruiters all have input in it as well. It’s really an all-hands-on deck approach to figure out—working with what we have in terms of reimbursement rates—how can we attract and retain top talent to provide the highest quality of care for the greatest number of patients possible.”
“That’s accomplished by having a strong workforce, which comes from many things,” she says. “Compensation is part of it. So are benefits. So are flexibility, collaboration, and organizational support. Sometimes it’s simply the relationship that people have formed with patients and families. We consider all those aspects while working very hard to ensure our compensation is competitive in the home care industry.”
