FAQ #53: February 19, 2021 – Containing Answers from February 16th
Answers to Staff Questions on Employee Health and Safety, Return to Work, and HR Policies
The following FAQs were adapted from questions submitted by VNSNY staff for the CEO Conference Calls hosted by Dan Savitt on Tuesday, February 16th.
Employee Health and Safety
Q. I need to go to Fort Myers, Florida, mid next week. I plan to test for COVID-19 prior and post my return. Am I to quarantine for 10 days post returning to New York City?
A. Tony Dawson, Vice President for Quality and Customer Experience: Great question. Thank you for asking this question. So, if you’re going to travel to Fort Myers, you need to get tested three days before you come back to New York City. And then when you come back, you need to get another test four days later, which is a total of seven days. And so, you can come back to work if you are negative on the first test and negative on the second test. And you can always come to one of the VNSNY testing centers and we can do a Rapid Test. You’ll have those results within 15 minutes.
If you do not comply with the testing before you come back, then you need to stay out on quarantine for 10 days. But if you’re following all the testing guidelines, you can come back on the seventh day. Those guidelines are on the Intranet under the COVID site.
Andria Castellanos, Chief of Provider Services: Tony, related to this question. So, let’s say I got my COVID vaccine. I got my first dose, and I got my second dose, and 14 days after my second dose aren’t there some new travel freedoms that I can have?
Tony Dawson: There is not anything published right now. It just says that you do not have to quarantine for the 10 days. But we actually had a discussion about that this morning with regard to waiting for the CDC to come out with some new guidelines for us with you being fully vaccinated. What do you do? Because there’s some difference on that with regard to international and/or state travel. So, stay tuned. We will keep you apprised of that as we move along. If you have any questions, please call the CERT team at 212–216–9970. This is changing by the day as we keep on getting more people vaccinated and hopefully get back to some form of normal.
Return to Work
Q. Is there any plan for returning to the office? If so, what is the plan as now, specifically for Clinical Care Managers within Population Health.
A. And so, as it relates to specifically with your teams, I would talk to your managers or your director within those groups, and they should be able to provide those specific plans. But, you know, we are turning in the right direction so we will begin strategizing around returning to the office, not just to 220 East 42nd Street, but across VNSNY’s footprint and there will be more to come is what I can say. So, we do not have a specific timeline today.
We will begin talking about that in the next few weeks and then as we, as that plan formulates and we have something to communicate, we will do that. But as of now, we are still steady as she goes so but more to come. But always, when you have questions about your department and what your department leadership is thinking, I always encourage people to be asking and be talking about this with their manager.
Patient Care and Clinical
Q. Is Telehealth work with video happening in Partners in Care? Will documentation of clients’ heavy duty housekeeping needs be done via video? Is VNSNY still affiliated with Paws New York to help clients with pet care needs? And will Partners in Care or VNSNY allow documentation of those of us Aides willing to help with pet care since it is unsafe for clients to do it themselves?
A. Andria Castellanos: First, unfortunately, Telehealth is not widely used at this time because there is no reimbursement for this from our payers. Meaning, the people who pay us for the care. Personal care, as everybody knows, is a hands-on service so there are challenges to delivering this type of care remotely. We are continuing to look for opportunities where this care can be delivered remotely.
But again, this is a really hands-on type of care. And we will look into Paws New York. We understand that it is really difficult if a client has, for example, a dog who needs a walk and you’re really not allowed to do that and then the client takes the walk. So, at this time, we ask that if this is a situation that you’re in that you contact the nurse who is in charge of that patient’s care and see how we can assist that person in the home.
Administrative
Q. If I’m working when the calls happen, how do I listen in to the call or know what is happening on the call?
A. We post these calls and the transcript, as well as any videos, both on the VNSNY intranet site and our Partners in Care Resource Page.
Q. Cómo hacer para ver y escuchar los videos si todos son en horario de trabajo?
A. Publicamos estas llamadas y la transcripción, así como cualquier video, tanto en el sitio de intranet de VNSNY como en nuestra página de recursos de Partners in Care.
Q. Are the Aides at Partners in Care eventually going to be able to submit questions about policies in general to our Senior Vice President, Jim Rolla, just like in this format via email? Even if there are no weekday conference calls with him, answers could be posted on our HHA Resource Page.
A. Andria Castellanos: Jim Rolla and I have actually been in touch during this phone call and he would be very happy to create a forum where the aides can ask and get their questions answered similar to this forum. So, he’s going to set that up and he’ll setup a mailbox for that as well. So, he’ll communicate those times when that will be available.
HR Policies
Q. What do you do when you are being told conflicting information from Human Resources? I have reached out to HR via the Ask HR tool. Who do I reach out to for clarification?
A. That’s a good question. Hopefully we don’t see that often and I’m going to ask Marian Haas, our Chief Human Resource Officer, to address that.
Marian Haas: Good morning everyone. I’m sorry to hear that you’re getting conflicting information. I would suggest that you send your question in to Brenda Sand and she can research the conflicting information or give her a call and she can research the conflicting information and get to the bottom of your issue. Thanks for the question.
Q. I work in the office some days and some days from home. Should I ask for clarification on how often to fill out the Workday COVID-19 Daily Self Heath Assessment? The company-wide email received was just to fill it out every day that we go to the office. And then Workday Daily Self Health Assessment Page has asked to fill it out every day, including days working from home.
A. Marian Haas: We do ask for people who are coming into the office some days and working from home on other days to complete that Daily Health Assessment every day. Because it provides important history to be available in the event that you do answer one of those questions, “Yes”. It provides guidance for our CERT team to be able to tell you what’s best to do. For people who are just coming in one day for their vaccination or some other reason, we just ask for you to complete it one day. We’ll take a look at that announcement that went out, February 4th, and we’ll make sure it gets clarified.