By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Menomonie Area Senior Center/Shirley Doane Senior Center is planning to offer adult day services soon for people with dementia.
The adult day services for people with dementia will be available in March on Mondays and/or Tuesdays, depending on the need, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., said Shari Homstad, representing the Menomonie Area Senior Center at the Dunn County Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) Advisory Committee’s January 24 meeting.
Homstad said senior center staff have heard quite a bit about the need for respite care for people who are caring for a spouse or a parent with dementia at home.
The senior center already offers adult day services on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, she said.
The cost for participants in the adult day services for people with dementia will be $11 per hour, Homstad noted.
The cost for the Adult Day Services program is $7 per hour, according to the Menomonie Area Senior Center’s website.
Senior center staff are currently working on the interview process, and Homstad asked the other members of the ADRC committee to pass along the information to anyone they might know who would be qualified to work in the Dementia Adult Day Services program.
The senior center also is looking for people who would participate in the Dementia Adult Day Services program, she said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic started, there were 19 or 20 people in the Adult Day Services program, Homstad said.
The Adult Day Services program re-opened on July 1 and now has five or six people who participate, she said.
Adult Day Services also needs more participants, and the senior center already has staff to provide that service, Homstad said.
Some of the money from the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources could be used help provide support for individuals or participants in the respite programs, said Tracy Fischer, manager of the Dunn County ADRC.
If the participants are financially eligible, there are guidelines for caregiver support, said Kristin Korpela, director of the Dunn County Department of Human Services.
The Menomonie Area Senior Center is located at 1412 Sixth Street East in Menomonie.
House Calls
As of January 1, employees who worked in the Dunn County Department of Human Services who were House Calls employees are now employees of Dunn County, Korpela reported.
DCDHS has had a decades-long working relationship with House Calls of Menomonie Inc., she said.
House Calls acted as an employee-leasing agency. Prior to 2008, Dunn County would determine the eligibility for disabled or aging people who needed services and then would provide the services, Korpela said.
Prior to the redesign of long-term care in Wisconsin when the ADRCs were developed, Dunn County contracted with providers to provide services, such as supportive home care, to those who were financially eligible. House Calls was one of the contracted providers of service, she said.
The services are now provided by managed care organizations, such as Inclusa. The other agency Dunn County worked with, Gemini Employee Leasing, has gone out of business, Korpela said.
House Calls has more of a niche market, and in addition to employee leasing, the company does guardianships and protective payee activities, she said.
Dunn County’s working relationship with House Calls has evolved as changes have come about in labor law and the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), Korpela said.
“It has been clear for a while that Dunn County has a joint employer relationship with House Calls,” she said.
The joint employer relationship means that both Dunn County and House Calls are responsible for the employees. If, for example, Dunn County paid the Medicare tax for employees and House Calls did not pay the Medicare tax, Dunn County would be liable for the money, Korpela said.
The “main sticking point” has been retirement benefits for employees. Both the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and WRS have weighed in on the issue, and after several legal opinions, it has become clear that it is time to end the leased staff relationship with House Calls and that those staff members become county staff, she said.
The change from House Calls employees to Dunn County employees affects two people in the ADRC, a benefits specialist and an employee in adult protective services, as well as half of the nutrition site managers, Korpela said.
The transition has gone smoothly, she said, noting that the employees have always been co-located in Dunn County.
House Calls is still in business and also offers private-pay personal care work as well as some mental health services and adult mentoring, Korpela said.
