Home care workers hit by pay delays

Stress, worry for families, employees as state transitions to new payment provider

The home care workers that help take care of his daughter have been a lifeline for an Allentown man and his wife, but for a few weeks after Pennsylvania changed the way it pays care workers, he was worried they might lose this lifeline.

The man’s 27-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy, a developmental disorder that affects motor function. She can’t walk and struggles with some everyday tasks. Her care workers help her get around the house, eat meals and live an overall better life.

“She’s delightful, but she has her challenges,” the father said. The family asked not to be identified because it fears potential repercussions from sharing its story.

His daughter receives a Medicaid waiver that pays for her to receive home care. The care workers that assist his daughter and some other care workers across the state are technically employed directly by the people they care for, rather than working for agencies. Though his daughter is in charge of approving time sheets,

a third party processes the time and pays the worker out of her Medicaid benefits.

On July 1, Tempus Unlimited, a Massachusetts company, took over Pennsylvania’s system for paying direct care workers who assist people with disabilities in the state, a process meant to streamline the system. Though this transition has had minimal or no negative impact on some workers

and families, it has caused headaches and worries for others.

One of this Allentown

family’s care workers, who asked not to be named out of concern it would affect future employment opportunities, said she went more than three weeks without getting paid. She finally received some of the money she was owed July 26 and has received a couple of other checks since then, but is still owed several hundred dollars.

The Allentown father said his daughter’s other direct care workers were fully paid July 26 but had to wait weeks. During those weeks, the man and his wife lent about $3,000 to the three workers so they wouldn’t have to quit.

Brandon Cwalina, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, said Tempus has paid more than 10,000 direct care workers on time out of about 11,000 total, and this gap was closing. But he added the department has heard from many care workers who had difficulty submitting their time and generating a paycheck and has heard many questions about time or pay.

Ali Kronely, director of Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania’s home care program, said the union has also heard about problems from some members and are trying to help them resolve these issues.

Larry Spencer, CEO of Tempus Unlimited, said some problems are to be expected.

“These types of transitions always have some challenges, because we’re taking data from the previous fiscal employer agent, and migrating that data to our systems,” Spencer said. “And if we don’t get complete data, or if we get incorrect data, it can cause a challenge.”

Earlier this year, Tempus had some issues with the payment system for Massachusetts care workers, though Spencer said the problem was of a different nature than the one that has occurred in Pennsylvania. In the Massachusetts scenario, most workers in the state system were already in Tempus’s so they were only transitioning part of the state rather than the whole state like Pennsylvania. But thousands of care workers in Massachusetts had payments delayed.

Spencer said Tempus isn’t turning a blind eye to those who are having trouble. The Department of Human Services, the state program Community Health Choices, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and managed care organizations are working with Tempus to ensure that the nonpayments are resolved as soon as possible.

These problems occurred even though the state twice delayed the transition to Tempus’s system, in January and April. Cwalina said this was to give workers, Community Health Choices participants and managed care organizations more time and training to prepare for the transition and ensure accurate payments would occur. Kronely said SEIU worked with Tempus for a year before the transition.

“The reason the collaboration has been so critical is because it really put direct care workers at the table,” Kronely said.

Cwalina said the transition was delayed to prevent disruption to as many people as possible. According to DHS and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, that worked.

“The truth is that the vast majority of direct care workers have been paid and have been paid correctly,” Kronely said. “We feel good about that, particularly given previous experience. But there have been some outliers and isolated cases of workers who have not gotten paid.”

But for the Allentown family’s care worker who is still owed money, it hasn’t felt good being one of the exceptions. She said she has worked in direct care for about six years, including one year with the Allentown woman, but had never experienced a pay disruption like this before.

“Why wasn’t this stuff tested and made foolproof before you switched over? You’re kind of messing with people’s livelihoods,” the care worker said. “An answer I’ve gotten is ‘Oh, we’re working on it.’ OK, so should I tell my electric company that they’re working on my paycheck right now?”

She said a major problem she and the other care workers had was with the app used to submit time cards to Tempus. The app would not generate a code required for the timesheet to be submitted, a problem that continued for weeks. Spencer said Tempus has since corrected the error.

Before the app was fixed, the worker tried calling Tempus’s automated system for submitting time, but that did not help. The worker then tried calling Tempus’s support line and ended up waiting in long call queues, being put on hold and getting transferred from department to department with no answers. The Allentown man said his wife also spent countless hours on the phone trying to find someone with Tempus in an attempt to get answers for the care workers.

But the Allentown family’s careworker said at this point it doesn’t feel like it is enough to just be paid what she is owed — she needed that money weeks ago. Though she wasn’t at risk of ending up on the street, this ordeal has been a financial blow, especially with the ongoing inflation.

“I don’t want to sound greedy but I feel like I need to be compensated for what is going on here — you can’t just do that to people,” the care worker said. “I’m trying to get back on my feet and I felt like I was doing really good. Then this hit me and it set me back.”

Cwalina said direct care workers who are still experiencing payment issues should contact Tempus or their service coordinators at their Community Health Choices managed care organizations for assistance. If additional assistance is needed the state Office of LongTerm Living’s participant helpline can be contacted at 1-800-757-5042. Members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania can also reach out to the organization for assistance.

“They are the backbone of Pennsylvania’s caring infrastructure and they not only deserve our thanks and support, they deserve to be paid on time and accurately,” Cwalina said.

“These types of transitions always have some challenges, because we’re taking data from the previous fiscal employer agent, and migrating that data to our systems. And if we don’t get complete data, or if we get incorrect data, it can cause a challenge.” — Larry Spencer, CEO of Tempus Unlimited