North Carolina Sick Pay Bill

The bill (House Bill 177) would require any business with 10 or more employees to accrue and pay sick time.

Sick time shall begin to accrue at the commencement of employment. Paid sick time shall accrue at the rate of one hour of pay for every 30 hours worked

The maximum accrual is 56 hours. This bill would apply to most if not all home care agencies who have employees (as opposed to bona fide contractors). There is no exemption for domestic workers except for those who employed in the home of their employer. This might exempt CAP Choice workers who are in theory under an employer of record system which might make their employer the homeowner where they serve the client.

This is a perfect example of a possibly disastrous unfunded mandate. Last year, the federal government approved an increase in the minimum wage, but the NC General Assembly gave North Carolina Home Care Agencies no rate increase to allow them to pay their employees more.

What does this mean financially for your home care agency? The average CNA worker has two clients at 30 hours a week. That means every week they accrue 1 hour of paid sick time and at the end of the year they would have 52 hours of sick time. This is an equivalent of a 3.3% rise in costs before taxes and workers comp with no increase to support this.

We think every home care provider should ask the General Assembly, where is the rate increase to cover this cost?

CNA Testing and Skills Validation Will Likely Get Stricter

North Carolina’s Division of Health Service Regulation (formerly called the Division of Facility Services) released a Request for Proposals (RFP) on February 3, 2009, concerning a contract to test the qualifications of CNA’s and Medication aides who assist clients in regulated facilities – including the home care environment. This RFP reveals DHSR’s thinking about home care CNA’s and what they should be trained and tested on by their employers.

DHSR intends to tighten up training and testing for CNA’s hired in home care who will be required to pass both a written or oral test (minimum 6th grade, maximum 8th grade level language used) and a practical demonstration test, including demonstrating skills on an anatomically correct manikin for “intimate” services such as dressing and undressing, and perineal care.

This requirement is separate and apart from the requirements to graduate from a North Carolina Board of Nursing approved CNA or Medication Aide course.

DHSR’s plan is for an independent contractor do the testing, supposing that skills testing by a third party training will be more accurate. Spanish language testing must be permitted, and once an employee is hired you cannot charge for the training or testing.

We suggest that you review your own in house CE requirements and skills checks to see whether your system would prepare your CNA’s to pass a competency and skills test like those described in the RFP.

Here is a link to the proposal documents: https://www.ips.state.nc.us/ips/AGENCY/PDF/06648000.pdf