Legal challenges to the state’s $15 an hour minimum wage for “direct care” employees are mounting.
The Florida Ambulance Association, Florida Assisted Living Association (FALA) and Home Care Association of Florida (HCAF) filed challenges in state administrative court this week alleging that the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which has oversight of the state’s Medicaid program, did not go through rule-making process to define who are “direct care employees.”
The cases have been assigned to state administrative Judge Robert S. Cohen. No hearing has been scheduled.
Lawmakers included the $15 minimum wage requirement for the “direct care employees” who provide care to Medicaid beneficiaries in the state’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget. Moreover, to ensure that the $15 minimum wage was being paid, the budget directed AHCA to enter into supplemental agreements with Medicaid providers that require them to attest, under penalty of perjury, that “every employee” of the provider is getting paid $15 an hour.
But the budget didn’t define who are “direct care employees.”
After the budget took effect, AHCA posted to its website a number of “frequently asked questions “about the minimum wage requirements. The agency initially included its definition of “direct care” workers and provided an example of a list of employees or positions it believed fell into the category.
The Home Care...
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