Suggestions for Increasing Volunteer Hours to make mandated 5%

[Judy White]

As a Volunteer Coordinator I am being challenged to help our volunteers help us as an agency, to reach our mandated goal of 5%matched hours with paid employees. I see by other V.C. I am not alone. Please give me any helpful suggestions you are using to increase your volunteer hours. I am finding that our declining economy is having an impact on our volunteers, as they lose jobs or have to take on extra work. I welcome any and all suggestions. Thanks! Best Wishes to you for the New Year~

[Judy White]

Thanks to everyone (so far) for your helpful insights and suggestions in reaching the 5% volunteer hour goal and for qualifying which volunteer hours count toward that goal. Very helpful and much appreciated~

[Linda Daniels]

This is the first time I have heard of an online volunteer training program. When did this become a tool? I do not know how the volunteer manager becomes personally involved with the volunteer if training is done off site out of the office. I feel that I have to know the volunteer on a personal level and see their behavior before I can assign them a patient. Maybe I am old fashioned.
Please explain this more to me-how it is utilized for volunteer recruitment and retainment.

[Jennifer Thompson]

I am grateful to see that other volunteer administrators are having trouble with the 5% guidelines. training and in-services no longer can be counted in the 5% but if you are giving additional training for a new problem under your direct patient care that requires more hands on (such as an 11 hour program) that additional training can be counted per Suncoast hospice in Florida. You also want to continue to review what volunteer opportunities you currently offer. You can create several different types of programs that will fall under your direct patient care. (pet therapy, caring clowns, life review videos, memory books, etc.) Life review videos and memory books require a lot of additional volunteer hours after the volunteer has left the patient/family. Also, don't forget bereavement


Jennifer Thompson, CVA

[HVTO]

I am looking forward to seeing the cost savings realized from the online volunteer training program. The training is currently being used successfully to recruit the college and high school crowd. This group is naturally inclined to complete computer classes easily and they fortunately have the optimal energy levels to provide patient care time via lawn/yard work, maintenance, legacy journals, errands, etc. It has proven to be a great cost saver with the basic training through independent study and quick turnaround time to achieving the 5% goals by using students full of energy to provide labor intensive volunteer tasks.

[Greg Schneider]

Simplifying the assessment of what meets the "5% Requirement"

I would suggest making the following considerations when asking yourself whether some activity meets the 5% requirement (this information can be found in the Federal Register, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 42 CFR Part 418 dated June 5, 2008) :

1. First of all, the 5% requirement of the Medicare law was put in place to ensure "a continuing level of effort to use volunteers in providing care to hospice patients. The law requires hospices to incorporate volunteer services into their daily patient care and operations routine in order to retain the volunteer-based essence of hospice in the U.S."
2. Secondly, the use of volunteers results in a direct cost savings to the hospice. The law requires "hospices to maintain records on cost savings achieved through the use of volunteers. That is, hospices must document those hours that volunteers furnished care and services for which a hospice would otherwise have been required to pay its employees to furnish such care and services."

Items 1) and 2) above provide the basis for determining what qualifies for the 5%. Item 1) stipulates that volunteer activities that are related to providing patient care are key. Item 2) influences whether or not the patient care related volunteer hours should be counted in the 5%.

If a hospice is training and orienting volunteers, it is most likely using its paid employees to do so. Therefore, no cost savings is achieved. However, if a hospice does pay an employee for time spent traveling for direct patient care and administrative purposes, and does not compensate a volunteer for the time, then it may include the volunteer’s travel time, direct patient care and administrative services in its documentation of the cost savings it achieves. Likewise, hospices may document the time that volunteers actually spend providing direct patient care and administrative services, because hospices would compensate paid employees for the time spent performing these duties. Medicare regulations also note that while travel time is not the same as direct patient care, it can be included if employees are compensated for such as mentioned above.

With regard to volunteer time spent in training or attendance in support meetings, consider the following opinion made in the HHS the above referenced Federal Register document:

"We understand that traveling, providing care or services, documenting information, and calling patients all consume volunteer time, and we agree that the time may be used in calculating the level of volunteer activity in a hospice. If a hospice chooses to include any of these areas that are directly related to providing direct patient care or administrative services in its percentage calculation of volunteer hours, it must ensure that the time spent by its paid employees and contractors for the same activity is also included in the calculation. That is, if a hospice chooses to count the hours spent by volunteers traveling to and from patient homes in its calculation of the numerator, it must count the hours spent by its paid employees and contractors in traveling to and from patient homes in its calculation of the denominator. In this way, hospices will be able to accurately assess the proportion of volunteer hours to paid staff and contractor hours."

In summary, the questions to ask yourself are?

• Is this related to patient care? (Activities such as marketing, serving on the board of directors do not qualify.)
• Is this an activity that an employee would get paid to do if the volunteer was not available?
• If clinical staff perform a similar function or participate in a certain activity, are they paid to perform that function or activity (e.g. travel time to see patients) ?
• Finally, HHS purposefully does not stipulate what roles a volunteer may serve in serving patients as they do not wish to limit the ways that they can be involved in patient care.
  
  Hope that is helpful.
  
  Greg Schneider
  HCF Creator
  President, HVA

[Linda Daniels]

I am talking to my supervisor about how to get more hours towards 5%. We have 3 offices in IL., so all 3 offices have to get the 5% together. Does your hospice have more than one office in the same state? I just learned that from her.
And she is going to find out about group meetings, if they count or not also.
Have a good New Year too.

[ocean (driver) sharp]

I am under the impression that the education hours and support meeting hours do not count...... please let me know if you find out something different

[Linda Daniels]

I understand what you are talking about! It is hard to get enough volunteers to do enough live visits with patients.
Here are a few ideas I have: Although craft hours do not count, you can have some gifts made by a group of kids (we have a key club make cards), then ask a few volunteers to take these gifts/cards around to several nearby nursing homes to present them to hospice patients. That will add a few hours on to your total.
You can do this quarterly, and the patients and volunteers get to know each other also.
Also, if you can get volunteers in for a support group meeting quarterly or monthly, that is counted as hours too. (And education hours).
Anything you have volutunteers do live is counted as time. Right?
Let me know if this helps- and what others' suggest.
Have a good New Year!

[Ginger Askew]

I believe education and support meeting hours can not be counted. If I am wrong - let me know - those hours would be helpful.

[Malena Hinze]

I place an ad for office volunteers and have them come help out. Volunteer Administration work counts toward the 5%.