This article is part of the HHCN+ membership
Three years after Maxim Healthcare Group split its staffing and home health divisions into separate companies, Maxim Healthcare CEO Jarrod DePriest is working to keep up with one trend in the home health industry: the adoption of cutting-edge technology. In other aspects, DePriest may have identified a way to stay ahead of trends in the evolving home care industry.
As the role of technology in the home health care industry rapidly increases, DePriest told Home Healthcare News that he recognized that Maxim had “a lot of room to fill.” To that end, the company continues to build its own technology stack. Meanwhile, Maxim has revolutionized caregiver benefits by offering a paid time off (PTO) program.
Based in Columbia, Maryland, Maxim provides home-based skilled nursing, personal care, respite care, and select behavioral care services.
HHCN recently met with DePriest to discuss expanding the company's employee benefits program, which currently serves 30,000 caregivers and 25,000 patients across 42 states. He also shared how the company is fighting for larger changes across the country as the federal health policy landscape rapidly changes.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HHCN: What are Maxim's strategic goals?
DePriest: Technology is advancing really, really quickly. When we separated from our staffing agency in early 2022 and started looking at our technology capabilities, we realized we had a lot to make up for. We have worked as fast as we can to improve our technological capabilities, but there are limits to speed. The first is that financial resources are a little limited. And second, how much change can operators and clinicians embrace and adapt to while continuing to operate? A very big strategic plan for us is to continue to evolve in terms of technology. We do a lot of building our own platforms, including building our own electronic document platform. Build your own EVV platform. We have a platform for our employees called Maxim Care Mobile that we built in-house.
There are far more patients and clients in the world who need care than most of us can provide, simply because we don't have enough people. So one of the tactics that we've adopted over the last few years is to really invest in our employees and try to evolve what has probably been a staffing model into something closer to a true employer model. So we invest in benefits, we invest in training, we invest in career opportunities, and we strive to position ourselves in the home care world as the company that treats its employees the best, that invests in their career paths and their lives, and that we position ourselves as the residency company that people want to come and work for a lot of time and many years.
You mentioned that separating your company's staffing and service departments will promote customer-centricity. Can you give an example of how Maxim approaches that?
One of our biggest initiatives was making a huge investment in our care workers and rolling out our PTO program in early 2024. Some companies may not have that, but through various feedback loops and surveys with caregivers, we've found that it's really important for companies. So we rolled out that program. This was a huge investment for the company, but it gave caregivers the peace of mind that they could take vacations, take sick days, do whatever they needed to do and still get paid that week. This is a great example of thinking about how to move your company forward by valuing the people who are doing really great work.
What happened after you rolled out your benefits program?
We were able to hire and deploy a record number of care workers. So, given the development of this type of program, one of our goals is to become more attractive in the market, and we are proving that. I think the second (result) is that the retention rate of nursing care staff is increasing year by year. So not only are we able to hire more people, but more people are choosing to stay with us long-term.
What challenges does Maxim currently face?
Perhaps the biggest issue facing all health care providers is the unknowns associated with the passage of (President Donald Trump's) Big Beautiful Act and how it will affect Medicaid spending at the state level in the coming years. It's really hard to see what will actually happen. The best we can know is that at some point each state will have to manage its growing Medicaid population with the same amount or less funding from the federal government. And that will cause challenges. Some states have fully implemented the Affordable Care Act and expanded it in recent years, and some states have significantly expanded the role of Medicaid. So what are they going to do if the federal match is cut in these states? So that's very worrying. It's very difficult not knowing what's going to happen in the future from a redemption standpoint.
So it goes back to what we talked about at the end when we look at investing in caregivers, investing in the workforce. We need to be very careful about the decisions we make. Because we know it's a one-way decision. For example, if we roll out a paid leave program and Medicaid reimbursement is reduced, we are not going to eliminate the paid leave program. Therefore, we pay very close attention to what is happening in the world. We know that we're probably going to see reimbursement issues in the next few years as states work on that.
What is Maxim doing to prepare for these challenges?
We work tirelessly on the advocacy front, educating Medicaid leaders in the states in which we operate, as well as federal regulators and legislators about home health care and its place in the ecosystem. We are currently working with the American Home Care Association to develop federal legislation that would define Continuing Skilled Nursing as a segment. That's because most providers of private nursing or continuing skilled nursing currently have to follow a bit of a hodgepodge of regulations. That would be a big win. We'll see what happens in the fall when the government returns to work and whether there is time left to debate the bill. But if this year doesn't work, let's try again.
It will soon be 30 years since I joined Maxim. What do you think will happen to home health care in the next 30 years?
The population in need of care is huge and will continue to demand more care for the foreseeable future. This is a lightning rod for challenges as the long-term care workforce shortage shrinks across the country. So I think those two dynamics are going to make it very difficult for providers to continue to evolve their operations to be able to meet the demands of their clients and patients, while at the same time figuring out what the caregiver population is that can do that (work). And I think providers that understand that and can probably create some workforce are going to be in a really good position.
Posted by: Sloane Airey
