Associated Home Care; a Fish Stinks from the Head, Corporate take-over

Associated Homecare is an example of how a corporate take-over, aimed at little more than financial PROFIT for the CEOs, can be disservice to both the clients they are to serve and also the government agencies that financially compensate them for the disservice they render. The disservice referred to here includes but is not limited to such things as: disorganization, misinformation, poor management, staff and workers NOT in the capacity to actually 'help' the client whereas their INEPTITUDE can result in making a client's medical condition WORSE.

In my situation, I had both a physical disability and a stress disorder and this agency came my way via Montachussett Home Care who 'jobbed out' to this agency in 2016. Initially, I had a wonderful worker who not only was very competent and dependable but also had what I'd call a 'therapeutic personality' and good ETHICS. When I say; 'good ethics', I'm NOT referring officious little bureaucrats or worker drones who blindly follow corporate policy. I'm referring to those who RECOGNIZE when a corporate policy is actually a DISSERVICE to the clients and inform the client of that. In this situation, she told me she would be LEAVING Associated HomeCare due to a change in management (corporate buy out). Although she was not 'supposed to' tell me, she did so because she knew that that the new management would NOT and that my finding out subsequent to the new management's policy to WITHHOLD that kind of information would be emotionally distressful to me. Although I was very saddened to lose this extremely competent, reliable, intelligent and ethical worker, I ADMIRE her for electing to no longer be further 'associated' (no pun intended) with Associated HomeCare.

The competent worker I had was an example of competent corporate policy on the part of a corporation who's aim was to HELP people and there were probably many more like her who left subsequent to the corporate take over. Good corporations with good corporate policies attract competent workers whether they be on the management end or the worker end. In fact, one of the things I learned while attending Harvard Business School is that if you want to get an idea about the efficiency, organizational skills and let's say 'competency' of a corporation, you look at those at the bottom of the pyramid, ie. the workers. When the lowest level workers have such things as reliability, good communication skills, honesty etc. that is a reflection of the management and the corporate CEOs. Now, when the REVERSE is true, the phrase I learned at Harvard B School was: "A FISH STINKS FROM THE HEAD" meaning that poor quality workers along with disorganized management; the 'tail' and the 'body' of the fish comes from the HEAD of the fish; the CEOs of the corporation.

So, the history of Associated Homecare as to when it started and continued (1991-2005-2016) went from GOOD fish to BAD fish. AHC started out as a LOCAL FAMILY business which attracted good workers and management and rendered a HELPFUL service to their clients. In corporate speak this is referred to their establishing 'goodwill' basically a good reputation as an ethical corporation or basically something with good/positive 'brand recognition'. Goodwill is a type of (intangible) asset  that can make a company more 'valuable' than it's book value (assets-liabilities) to a potential purchaser. Something where it's 'worth it' for the purchaser to buy out another corporation BECAUSE they are buying a company that has established a good reputation. In this way the good reputation the prior management established is associated with the corporate buy out.

Unfortunately, in case of the corporate take over by Amedisys of Associated Home Care, it's a BAD FISH consuming a GOOD FISH where Associated Home Care is NO LONGER deserving of of the good reputation established by the ORIGINAL (Trigilio) family who started it. The CEO, Paul Kusserow of the company, Amedisy's who took over Associated Home Care has a salary of about 4 MILLION a year! He has changed Associated Home Care from a place that used to HELP people to one that HARMS them and all the while BILKING the government who pays for home care services for the elderly and disabled who are not private pay.

A FISH STINKS FROM THE HEAD as in directly from the CEO, Paul Kusserow and all the way down to the 'entrails', those in managerial positions (eg. 'Jason' for AHC in Leominster) to the 'tail', the workers, many of them of questionable immigration status (extremely high work force of non-English and only Spanish speaking workers and born here English speakers in very SHORT supply). Many of the workers, whether or not they are English speakers are undependable or unreliable and SOME are NOT so because they 'chose' to be that way but rather because the MANAGEMENT does not communicate to them the schedule changes they make FOR the worker (when they elect to juggle them around). They will tell the client one thing and the worker another thereby leaving the client without a worker on the planned time and then position the client to allocate another day for a worker to come by and this process can repeat itself.

In my case, I have both a stress disorder and a physical disability (need a hip replacement) and have had to hold off the hip replacement for YEARS due to the anxiety of having such an agency where if I can't rely on them for predictable services, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN if I have a surgery and I'm holed up in in a 3rd floor apartment waiting for help. Clearly, such ineptitude would ENDANGER me. As to the stress disorder which is a MEDICAL condition, they have made that WORSE and in wanton disregard of my telling them that their UNRELIABILITY, questionable work force and MISMANAGEMENT was contributing to it. They are in WANTON DISREGARD due to the fact that I became a client of theirs via  Mass Health Behavioral Partnership, reminded them countless times how they were making my stress disorder WORSE. Imagine that, an agency, PAID by the government to accommodate individuals with stress disorders who's policies makes those conditions WORSE.

In my opinion, Paul Kusserow, the CEO who took over Associated Home Care has turned it into a PREDATORY agency and this agency deserves NEITHER the 'good will'/good reputation attributed to the NAME of the agency BEFORE Kusserow RUINED it NOR does it deserve government funds to be channeled into Kusserow's 4 MILLION DOLLAR A YEAR salary pockets. Yes. PREDATORY as in PREYING on the disabled, elderly and low income, many of whom are left 'captive' in their own home because they have no other choice than to be jerked around by this agency who has no compunctions about juggling their staff schedules so the client has no way of predicting any consistency for the timing of when help will arrive. 

Montachusett Home Care is PART of this because it JOBS OUT to Associated Home Care. In the past, that agency had very competent case managers. But they too have lost their competent case managers.

A large 'concern' of both Associated Home Care and Montachusett Home care is that the workers don't give the clients a ride to the store for shopping. They are afraid of getting sued in the event of an accident. No. They are afraid of spending extra for simply adding an insurance policy in order so that workers CAN take clients shopping. Just another example of PROFIT MAXIMIZATION at expense of SERVICE MINIMIZATION. They ought to be afraid of getting SUED for all the DURESS they cause as to make a client's medical condition WORSE.

I and my therapist shall be filing a complaint regarding BOTH agencies. I strongly suggest that any other client who has been victimized subsequent to the corporate take over of Associated Home Care by Amedisys under corporate leadership of it's CEO, PAUL KUSSEROW to file a complaint and especially so if a government agency (ie Mass Health) is lining Kusserow's 4 million $ a year POCKETS to render a DISSERVICE to you.