For Immediate Release - November 21, 2007
Contact Jeff Cook - 215-557-9285

Home Care Agency to Pay $2.2 Million for Cheating its Home Care Workers

Seniors and Caregivers Call for More Accountability of Home Care Agencies

(Philadelphia ) – Total Health Home Care Corp., with offices in Upper Darby and Havertown, must pay $2.2 million today to settle a class action lawsuit filed by home caregivers and supported by SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania.

“This is a huge victory for home care workers, and we are finally going to get the back wages we were shortchanged. But we should never have had to go through this and neither should our clients,” said Tracey Dennis, a plaintiff in the Total case. “Total Health Home Care needs to begin treating its caregivers right and provide living wages and affordable healthcare to help reduce turnover and provide the best possible care.”

Initially filed May 18 by four of Total’s home health care workers, the lawsuit alleged the company owed its workers for time spent traveling between clients and for overtime accrued when the travel resulted in more than 40 hours of time being clocked in a week.

The settlement, filed with the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for approval, covers approximately 3,000 employees, including the original four litigants, Anna Thomas, Tracey Dennis, Renee Johnson and Marilyn Jackson. The exact amount of the settlement disbursement among the class was not filed with the court.

“This is the most important victory for home care workers ever in the city of Philadelphia” said Bruce Ludwig, of Willig, Williams & Davidson, class counsel. “But we still face other serious problems because when caregivers are shortchanged, it can impact the care of their clients, too.”

And some seniors are saying that home caregivers continue to suffer at Total Health Home Care. Recently, the company made provisions to comply with the law by reducing its workers base pay and paying them minimum wage for travel time, meaning that workers take home pay is essentially the same or sometimes even lower than prior to the company’s “compliance” with the law. Total receives anywhere from $15-$21 of taxpayer funds per hour for care that the home care worker provides, and caregiver wage rates are around $8 per hour, with no health benefits.

Seniors and caregivers are now calling for more oversight by the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA), the quasi-government agency that refers seniors to Total Health Home Care and other home care agencies. Concerned about the impact on the quality of care, caregivers pointed to a turnover rate of approximately 300% per year at Total.

Community leaders are now calling on PCA to avoid contracting with agencies that violate the law; to provide more transparency around issues of quality, abuse, and neglect; and to make sure that taxpayer money intended to provide care makes it down the front line home caregiver.

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SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania is the state’s largest and fastest-growing union of health care workers in PA with over 20,000 members in hospitals, nursing homes, home care, and state facilities. We are affiliated with the one million-member SEIU Healthcare, the largest union of health care workers in the nation, dedicated to quality, affordable health care for all.