Policy · Medicaid rates
Florida providers challenge how the state is enforcing a $15 direct-care wage
Assisted living, ambulance, and home-care groups say the budget’s $15 floor arrived without a clear definition of who counts as direct care, and without enough money to pay it.
DXR, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Direct Support News desk · · 4 min read
Three Florida provider groups are challenging the way the state is carrying out a requirement that Medicaid-funded direct-care workers be paid at least $15 an hour. Florida Trend reported the disputes on September 23.
The Florida Assisted Living Association, the Florida Ambulance Association, and the Home Care Association of Florida filed challenges at the Division of Administrative Hearings. They argue the Agency for Health Care Administration never formally defined “direct care,” so providers are being held to an unadopted rule.
A separate lawsuit in Leon County circuit court, filed in late September, targets budget language that could let workers sue providers, including through class actions, if the $15 wage is not paid. The groups say the money appropriated to raise rates may not cover the new wage bill.
The fight matters beyond those three associations. Direct support and home-care wages are set by the same kind of budget footnote: a wage promise in statute, and a rate that may not move with it.
This is a desk summary, not the original report. Read it at Florida Trend.