LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Wednesday some healthcare workers will soon start receiving bonus checks every week as they work on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not every single healthcare worker is included in this, yet.
Arkansas Medicaid will begin paying those bonuses to non-physician direct care workers in long-term services. These include: nursing homes,assisted living facilities, hospice, intermediate care facilities, human development centers and also workers who serve in patients homes.
"If you look in the long-term care space like nursing homes, the biggest payer is Medicaid. For hospitals and that sort of thing, Medicaid is typically not the largest player," Amy Webb said.
These direct care workers in long-term services include:
- Registered, licenses or certified nurses
- Personal care and home health aides assisting with activities of daily living under supervision of a nurse or therapist
- Respiratory therapists
- Hospice service direct care workers
- Direct care workers providing services under home and community-based waivers
- Assisted living direct care workers
- Nursing assistive personnel
- Intermediate Care Facility direct care staff including those that work for a state-run human development center
Amy Webb with the Department of Human Services said these workers are receiving checks first because they are helping Arkansas's most vulnerable population, people aged 65 and up.
"The people who are dying are those that are older with complex conditions and we really need to have staff on hand to take care of them," Webb said.
The bonus pay for long-term direct care workers depends one how long you work and if you are working with a patient or a facility that had COVID-19 patients.
If you work less than 40 hours a week and do not work directly with COVID-19 patients, your pay will be $125 dollars a week. Full time is $250 a week. Work a regularly planned split shift schedule that overlap weeks that equal or exceed 150 hours per month, not including overtime -- $250.00/week.
But if you are serving COVID-19 patients or work in a unit with one, your pay for:
- 1-19 hours per week is $125.00/week
- 20 -39 hours a week is $250
- Full-time workers plus overtime will receive $500 a week
- If you work a regularly planned split shift schedule that overlap weeks that equal or exceed 150 hours per month, not including overtime -- $500.00/week
If you are someone like a registered nurse in a hospital setting or a janitor in either a nursing home or a hospital, you could soon see a bonus check, too. Arkansas received $1.25 billion from the federal government to deal with costs associated to COVID-19. The governor is looking to use that money for those direct care workers in hospitals and to those non-direct care workers in hospitals and long term care setting.
"It's critically important to also get pay to those health care workers," Webb said.
When THV11 asked when people should expect these checks, all DHS could say was sometime soon.