The U.S. Department of Labor may be proposing to raise the minimum salary requirements for applying overtime exemptions for ‘professional’ and ‘executive’ personnel and to tighten the standards for deciding whether an employee is professional or executive, according to the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).
 
Specifics of the proposal, which was submitted by the Labor Department to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on May 5, have yet to be made public. But the Obama Administration has expressed concerns that individuals earning less than $24,000 were being required to work extensive extra hours without compensation, NAHC says.
 
The minimum salary necessary to qualify for the overtime exemptions is $455 per week, a rate set in 2004, and President Obama indicated in March 2014 he wanted the standards updated, NAHC says. Speculation abounds about what is in the Labor rule, but many expect the salary requirement for the exemptions to double.
 
Many companies pay professional clinical staff a base salary equivalent to the minimum exemption level and add compensation on a per-visit basis. If the salary minimum is raised significantly, some home health agencies and hospices could be deterred from using this compensation method effectively, NAHC fears.
 
NAHC expects the proposed rule will be released by the OMB in a matter of weeks, at which point the public will be able to comment on the rule.