Home Health Nurses Pinched By Prices At Pumps

BOSTON -- For folks who make their living behind the wheel or spend a lot of time on the road, it has been a brutal summer on the bottom line.

NewsCenter 5's David Boeri reported that prices at the pumps have backed off a penny or two at many local stations, but are still at near-record levels. Many of the costs of the price spike are hidden.

Take, for instance, the plight of the home health care worker, where just getting around is getting very expensive.

After a fractured hip, complications and a long stay in rehab, Bruno Martelli has come home to Bridgewater, Mass., where he is being visited by home care nurse Jo-Ann Corr.

The visits by a nurse and therapist allow Martelli to be where he wants to be most.

"I love it being home. I can't tell you how I missed not being home," he said.

But key to the nurses' home visits, of course, is driving, and the key to driving is gas -- whose price is going up like bad blood pressure.

"We're always trying to seek out cheaper gas stations, whether it's self-serve or not, but the price at the pump gets scary some days," Corr said.

Understandably, when she's paying for it and driving 50 to 80 miles a day. If the reimbursement for mileage didn't go up, Corr and other home care nurses might be paying out of pocket.

Instead her employer, Partners Home Care, has recently increased reimbursement to $.38 a mile, that's a 23 percent hike since last summer. For the next fiscal year, Partners has had to increase its budget by 8.5 percent.

"Partners Home Care is committed to serving all in need of home care services, children and adults, regardless of their ability to pay," Partners spokeswoman Mary Bures said.

Nurses are now arranging their home visits to minimize mileage.

"We try to coordinate our patient visiting so we are not driving from one end to the other end," Corr said.

For Partners it means more fundraising to cover the reimbursements to its traveling nurses.