Healthcare Workers
Overtime pay for home health aides, nurses, CNAs, and group home workers misclassified or unpaid for travel time and hours worked.
If you're a home health aide, CNA, nurse, or facility worker, you're probably owed overtime for travel time between visits, unpaid charting time, and any deductions for lunch breaks you didn't actually take. Healthcare workers are entitled to overtime for all hours actually worked, including documentation, drive time, and on-the-clock work performed during meal periods. The companionship exemption is narrow and rarely applies once an agency is involved. Across two, possibly three, years of unpaid hours, recoveries in healthcare cases can be substantial.
You're a home health aide, nurse, CNA, or group home worker. You drive between patient homes or facilities, work through unpaid lunch breaks, and your employer either pays you a flat rate or tells you that you're an independent contractor exempt from overtime.
Your time matters. Travel between patients, mandatory meetings, training, and time spent on paperwork or filling out care plans are all hours worked. And if you're misclassified as a contractor or not paid for the time you actually work, that's a federal violation.
Who I Represent
- Home health aides (HHAs)
- Certified nursing assistants (CNAs)
- Registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in home care settings
- Group home and residential facility workers
- Disability support providers (DSPs) and day program staff
- Personal care attendants and companion caregivers
- Any healthcare worker paid flat rates or as a 1099 contractor
Common Violations
Travel time not paid. You drive 45 minutes to your first patient's home, work 8 hours, then drive 30 minutes to a second location. Your employer only pays you for the hours spent at the patient bedside. The travel time is work, and you're owed for it. This adds up fast, especially if you're bouncing between multiple patient homes daily.
Lunch breaks deducted but not taken. You work through lunch because a patient needs care. Your employer deducts a 30-minute or hour-long lunch break anyway. That's a violation. If you work through it, you get paid for it. If you get a genuine meal break away from work duties, then the deduction is legal.
Misclassification as independent contractors. You're on a 1099, but the agency decides your schedule, the patient you serve, how you do the job, what supplies you use, and what you wear. You're not in business for yourself. You're not free to take other clients. You depend entirely on this one company for work. That's an employee, not a contractor.
Group home workers and the 500K exemption myth. Some employers tell residential care facility workers that they don't have to pay overtime because the facility operates on a small budget or serves fewer than a certain number of people. That's false. The revenue threshold that exempts some employers doesn't apply to residential care facilities. Group home workers get overtime protection.
Automatic lunch deductions. Many home care agencies automatically deduct a meal period whether you actually took it or not. If you can't take a break because you're caring for a patient, that time is compensable.
How the Law Protects You
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires all compensable work time to be paid. That includes travel to and between patient locations, waiting time if you're required to be ready to work, mandatory training, and paperwork.
Courts look at the economic reality of the relationship, not what the paperwork says. The factors they weigh are: (1) the degree of control the company exercises over how the work is done; (2) the worker's opportunity for profit or loss; (3) the relative investment each side has made: tools, equipment, facilities; (4) the skill and initiative the work requires; and (5) how permanent the relationship is. Courts also consider whether the work is integral to the company's core business as part of the overall economic picture. No single factor is decisive. Courts look at the full picture, and no contract, 1099 form, or verbal agreement can override what the economic reality actually shows.
Home care workers almost always qualify as employees under this test. You don't control when, where, or how you work. You're not independently serving multiple companies. The employer controls everything. That's employment, not contracting.
Most salaried healthcare workers in home care settings do not meet the requirements for any overtime exemption. Even if you're salaried, you must satisfy all elements of the applicable exemption test to be lawfully excluded from overtime. Most do not.
The 8/80 System for Hospitals and Residential Facilities
Hospitals and residential care facilities can elect an alternative overtime schedule called the "8/80 system" under FLSA § 207(j). Instead of calculating overtime weekly, employers who properly elect it can calculate it over a 14-day cycle. Under 8/80, you're owed overtime for hours over 8 in any single day OR hours over 80 in the 14-day period, whichever produces more pay.
This system doesn't eliminate overtime. It just changes how it's calculated. Many employers mistakenly believe it reduces their overtime exposure, but daily overtime (anything over 8 hours in a single shift) often generates more overtime than the standard weekly calculation.
There are also strict requirements: the 8/80 election must be in writing, must be agreed to before the work is performed, and must be communicated to employees. If your employer never properly elected the 8/80 system, standard weekly overtime rules apply, and any overtime calculated differently is likely underpaid.
What Your Case Could Be Worth
Home care cases can involve significant damages because the violations typically run across years of employment, and the unpaid time adds up.
Consider a home health aide working 45 hours a week with 90 minutes of unpaid travel time each week, earning $15 per hour. Over two years without overtime pay, back wages alone could exceed $10,000. Add liquidated damages (another 100 percent) and the case value climbs to $25,000 or more. If multiple workers are involved or the pay is higher, cases routinely exceed $50,000.
No Cost to You
I work on a contingency fee basis. You pay nothing upfront. If there is no recovery, you pay nothing at all, not even the costs. Zero financial risk.
Contact Me
30+ years employment law experience. 15+ years FLSA-only.
If you've been misclassified as a contractor, had lunch breaks deducted when you worked, or weren't paid for travel time between patients, call me. I'll walk through what you were paid, how your time was tracked, and whether you have a case.
Call me at (512) 799-2048.
Related Reading
- Healthcare Worker Overtime in Texas: Charting, Travel Time, and Shifts. A comprehensive guide to the specific overtime violations healthcare workers face, including charting time, travel, and the 8/80 system.
- Automatic Lunch Deductions: When It's Illegal to Deduct Time You Never Had. How automatic deduction policies become wage theft when workers can't actually leave their patients.
- How Much Is My FLSA Overtime Case Worth?. How back pay, liquidated damages, and attorney fees are calculated in a healthcare overtime case.
- Can Employers Average Hours Over Two Weeks to Avoid Paying Overtime? No.. Why the FLSA requires overtime calculated per workweek and why biweekly averaging is illegal.
- Home Health Administrators and Coordinators. The salaried side of the same agencies: directors of client services, RN case managers, care coordinators, and clinical directors whose titles do not match the FLSA duties test.