FAQ #30 September 11, 2020 from CEO Conference Call 9/8
Answers to Staff Questions on Employee Health and Safety, Patient Care, and HR Policies
The following FAQs were adapted from questions submitted by VNSNY staff for the CEO
Conference Calls hosted by Marki Flannery on Tuesday, September 8th.
Employee Health and Safety
Thank you for keeping us as informed as possible. Is it possible to get a flu shot at 220 E 42nd Street? Not to cause an influx of employees coming to employee health services, I just trust them the most and I’m in the neighborhood at times.
So we are planning to offer flu shots here at our 220 location. We’re waiting for a flu shot vaccine to be delivered. We’re hoping that it is imminent. We did get some vaccine for individuals over the age of 65. So we’re waiting to get our full compliments of vaccine in, and then we will be providing that information to staff so that they can schedule to come in and get a flu shot here on premises.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness in making it so easy to get a flu shot. I was able to easily find a CVS voucher, went into CVS in Staten Island, and I had my shot in minutes. I was amazed to see that there were vouchers for Walgreen, Duane Reade, or CVS. This truly has made it easy to keep us all healthy. Thank you.
So that’s very nice of that individual to send us that note, and we want to make it easy because we want everyone to get a flu shot.
I noticed that the meditation sessions on Wednesday have stopped. Is there any chance that this could be continued as it was a great help to deal with COVID-19 crisis and the demands on the employees while working at home?
Marian Haas, Chief Human Resources Officer: We plan to continue the meditation sessions. So please watch for more information on that, as they really have not stopped.
Patient Care and Clinical
I want to bring to your attention, that one of the reasons patients and their family members are disgruntled at VNSNY is because of our poor follow-up and lack of communication. On the days where the COC is off, cases are being pushed and rescheduled. These cases are not being triaged, and no courtesy call is being made to the patient to know that their scheduled visit is being rescheduled for another day. Patients and their family end up waiting for the nurse to show up all day. And when they tried to call the office, they end up listening to elevator music for 20 minutes or more before they give up. We owe these patients at the very least a courtesy call. There should be a mandatory process in place that whenever a scheduled visit is moved, a patient call is logged, showing the patient was notified of this changed.
So I couldn’t agree with you more. We absolutely owe this courtesy to our patients, and I am hopeful that for the most part, these calls are being made, but clearly not always.
Andria, would you like to address this question?
Andria Castellanos, Chief of Provider Services: I want to thank the person who wrote this in. I’ve already reached out to the leadership team of the Certified Home Health Agency, and we are all in complete agreement that it is completely unacceptable that our patients are not being notified when their visits have been rescheduled.
Now there may have been attempts to notify patients, and for whatever reason the patient couldn’t answer the phone. And we are looking into different technologies as well that we might be able to use to make it easier to communicate with our patients. Some of those technologies to look out for in the future might be texting patients or emailing patients. So those are just some things that might come down in the future. However, it is completely unacceptable, and we will continue to work on this and make sure that every effort is made to communicate with patients about changes in the schedule.
HR Policies / Pay and PTO Policies
This is a follow-up to last week’s question. How long can an employee be furloughed? And if an employee is furloughed for more than six months, will that employee become a permanent layoff? Last week, you said you weren’t sure. I’m worried because I’ve been furloughed for more than five months now, and I don’t know where I stand. Many of the employees in my department, which is the Partners in Care Education department, feel the same way.
Marian: Yes, thank you for the question. Among the staff who are furloughed — many of them have been recalled already as I’m sure this person is aware. Although, unfortunately, we have not had the opportunity to reinstate some of the staff in the Partners in Care Education department.
As the jobs that staff performed become available again, people are being returned from furlough. Furlough is not a status that has any definitive end time. And so, what we are continuing to look at in connection specifically to the jobs with the Partners in Care education department is how we are doing home health aide training and in-service, and hiring in this new world of social distancing and virtual training. We’ve had several meetings on this, including one first thing this morning. And we are arranging for a time later this week to share more information about our plans on training for home health aides, and reaching out the all of the employees who are on furlough.
But people on furlough are on furlough because we don’t have work for them to yet return to in their former position. And we will be continuing to work through those decisions as our business evolves and grows into what appears to now be the new normal with social distancing.
A permanent layoff would only happen if we expected that we would not have a position for people who are on furlough. And VNSNY would want to work with those people on furlough if their position is being impacted such that we didn’t think that they would be coming back to that job.
So, please be in touch with your manager and your supervisor as we go forward over the next couple of weeks and we will provide more information. But just to be clear, that a furlough, it doesn’t have a specific end date and we would not expect that a furlough will turn to a permanent layoff unless your position is truly being eliminated from our operations going forward.
Workday is extremely difficult to navigate and keep track of hours and earnings. For example, working on a holiday, I want to bank 14 and a half hours and the system won’t take it. HR was contacted on several issues and unable to assist most times. Also have contacted co-workers for assistance. Please do a thorough training on using the system. A lot of my colleagues would agree that further training is needed. The system frequently miscalculates hours submitted.
Marian Haas: Thanks for the question. We have a number of different types of pay available for some categories of jobs on holidays. And so, questions about holiday worktime input are not uncommon into HR. Although, I’m sorry to hear that we were unable to assist you when you contacted us. So I would like to reach out to the person who asked this question specifically to a) ensure that the issues for banking hours have been resolved, and b) that we can arrange for thorough training on using this system, particularly since it’s people believe that further training would be helpful and necessary at this time.
What is the status of the Partners in Care Education department in terms of when people will hear more about returning to work?
Tony Dawson, VP of Quality and Customer Experience: We’re absolutely trying to get this scheduled now. As Marian said, we met this morning and are trying to figure out what the next steps are for education. And as you know, because of social distancing and other issues that we have, we are trying to bring staff back and trying to bring our education back online.
As soon as we have some more information, we will schedule a call, and we’ll do that very soon so that everybody understands where we are and what we’re doing as a next step. And so thank you for bringing this to our attention. Again, we do want to have information for you before we meet with you, so we will get that scheduled very, very soon.
Due to the recent uptake in admissions, for an employee who currently receives the car allowance, if asked to assist in another borough, can an employee be reimbursed for additional toll expenses incurred?
First, thank you for assisting in other regions. The transportation allowance policy states: A monthly “Transportation allowance” is provided to certain Regular Full-time and Regular Part-time Employees who are required to use their personal cars on a daily basis. It provides reimbursement for all operating costs of operating for business purposes, except parking and tolls. Parking and tolls may be reimbursed separately by submission to Payroll.
Thus, any toll expenses incurred while traveling to other boroughs can be reimbursed by submitting a request to Payroll. If you have any questions, feel free to contact HRConnect at 212-609-7900.
Administrative
Pins that were mailed out to staff, were they just for the regular fulltime and part-time staff or where they also mailed to temps as well?
Marian Haas: Yes. We looked into this question, and the pins that were mailed out were mailed out to all staff, and temps who are on VNSNY payroll should have received them as well. But if the person asking this question is asking about a temp employee who is employed by a temporary agency and not a temp employed by VNSNY, we not have sent them a pin. If the person who sent this question should have received one and did not, I do ask that she’d contact HR or telephone me directly.