The recently enacted paid sick leave will have significant financial impact on Agency Directed Personal Care Providers across Virginia.  While we support providing quality benefits to our workforce, this mandate was enacted without corresponding reimbursement to fund the additional cost.  

Unlike most businesses, Medicaid-funded personal care agencies cannot increase prices to offset new state mandated expenses.  Our reimbursement rates are established by the Commonwealth, leaving providers with no mechanism to recover these costs.  Every new unfunded mandate further erodes the already thin operating margin, mandates enacted without corresponding reimbursement to fund the additional cost results in 

• Increased financial hardship for Agency Directed Personal Care providers
• Reduced services, in urban and rural areas
• Agency closures
• Thousands of elderly and disabled individuals facing reduced access to HCBS care
• A growing workforce crisis that threatens the stability of Virginia's Long term care system
• Impact to in home access to care, increasing more costly institutionalized care

This is not simply a provider issue-- it is an access to care issue.  If providers cannot afford to operate, vulnerable Virginians will lose access to critical services, and the Commonwealth's investment in community-based care will be undermined.