Celtic Healthcare Named "Company of the Year"

H2 Marketing announced last week that Celtic Healthcare has been named "Company of the Year" in their 2009 Home Care Marketing Awards. This one-of-a-kind awards program recognizes the achievements of organizations and professionals in the specialized field of home care sales and marketing.
"The Home Care Marketing Awards provide a vehicle for honoring exemplary performance," stated Heather Rooney, President of H2 Marketing.
We are proud of this recognition, and honored to share our good news with you!

Celtic Healthcare Taking a Stance
Against Unfair Managed Care Reimbursement Rates In Northeast Ohio

In Youngstown, Ohio, Celtic Healthcare recently submitted a letter of termination of contract to Anthem Insurance Company. After voicing our concerns with Anthem regarding reimbursement rates well below our actual cost to service our patients and expressing our willingness to negotiate new reimbursement rates, Anthem accepted our termination letter.

The gap between Celtic’s cost per visit, which is well within state and national medians, and the Anthem per-visit rate is too significant to bear and remain fiscally viable at 44 percent below average cost per visit.

Our intent is to take a stance on behalf of the entire health care industry against managed care reimbursement rates that do not allow health care providers to adequately service patients. If you would like to support us in this cause, please contact an Anthem representative at 1-888-290-9160, visit their website at www.anthem.com or write them at 120 Monument Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46204.

At Celtic Healthcare, we do remain hopeful for potential and future negotiations with Anthem that would again allow Celtic Healthcare to provide care to our Anthem patients.

Mother's Day is May 10th

Health care is a profession in which we can make a difference in people’s lives nearly every day. The care and concern medical professionals exhibit for their patients is unparalleled and remarkable. Nursing, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Language Pathology, Social Work, Hospice Workers, and Home Health Aides, like those at Celtic Healthcare, are some of the most rewarding and challenging careers you can choose other them being a mother. How fortunate that some can combine both!

Contrary to popular belief, Mother's Day was not conceived by Hallmark. In the United States, Mother's Day started nearly 150 years ago, when homemaker Anna Jarvis organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it "Mother's Work Day."

In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Story has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother told her and wanted mother’s day to be on a Sunday.

Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen like John Wannamaker and politicians including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna's mother in 1908 at her church in West Virginia, Anna handed out her mother's favorite flower, the white carnation. In 1914 Anna's hard work paid off when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mother's Day as a national holiday.

Thank you to all our Celtic healthcare providers who are also mothers!

Celebrate National Nurse's Week May 6 - 12, 2009!
We are full of reasons to celebrate this month! Last, but far from least, we celebrate all of our wonderful Celtic Healthcare homecare and hospice nurses this week. We also celebrate all of those nurses in the doctors' offices we serve, the skilled, assisted, and independent living facilities we serve, and all the others who are patients, customers, relatives and friends of Celtic.
Thank you for your passion and commitment to your profession and for taking such good care of all of us. We honor you this week and always!