How Advocacy Became a Fundamental Pillar of the Leading Home Health Care Company

Hearts for Home Care’s Founder, BAYADA, Turns 50: How Advocacy Became a Fundamental Pillar of the Leading Home Health Care Company

In 1975, Mark Baiada used his life savings to embark on a journey of fulfilling his dream of compassionately helping others and opened a home health care company in Philadelphia, PA. Mark’s vision was crystal clear: Provide the highest level of care, compassion, and reliability in the homes of our most vulnerable loved ones. And that vision was extremely successful. Within a year, the company had doubled its business, and within a decade, there were 11 service offices in the Philadelphia area and the company’s identity became known as Bayada Nurses before transforming to BAYADA Home Health Care in 2012. But what Mark could have never envisioned was that decades later he would be inspiring and empowering thousands of employees, clients, and families to advocate for home care as a right—rather than a privilege.

Needed a Seat at the Table

Before the idea of Hearts for Home Care ever existed, advocacy began back in 2005 when Mark recognized the need for some kind of representation within the state governments where BAYADA operated. This is when Louise Lindenmeier stepped in to help guide legislative affairs in New Jersey and then in 2007, Anita Weinberg joined to help with similar efforts in PA. However, it quickly became apparent that since much of the company’s business was funded by the government through Medicaid programs, BAYADA needed a seat at the table. Long-time friend of Mark Baiada, David Totaro, was brought on in 2009 to focus on direct lobbying in key states and the Government Affairs Office (GAO) was born.

GAO’s original mission: “Represent BAYADA to all levels of local, state, and federal government entities, regulatory agencies and community organizations. Be the voice for all our clients, their families, our employees through education, advocacy, community service and data-driven research.” Within a few years, GAO had expanded to included ten government affairs specialists who successfully represented BAYADA’s interests in state governments across the East Coast. But as the need for government affairs increased, there was a key principle that was missing in GAO’s advocacy formula: a large, empowered group of people who were willing to take action and make their voices heard with their elected officials.

Bringing People Together

Grassroots advocacy became a fundamental pillar of GAO and hundreds of employees joined the mission to help advocate for better access to reliable care in the home. GAO’s successes grew rapidly and BAYADA became known as an industry leader in advocacy. By then, advocacy was engrained in the culture of BAYADA as the company exemplified that it didn’t just provide home care services to people and employ them, but that it advocated for them and enabled them to advocate for themselves and their colleagues and peers—a powerful differentiator.

And the hard work was paying off. State governments were hearing individuals’ voices and incrementally increasing their investments in home-based care. But it was evident that to make home health care the future of America’s healthcare system, it was going to take a much larger movement to enact the kind of change needed on a nationwide scale. GAO’s vision was to create a brand where anyone who cared about home care—not just those affiliated with BAYADA—would be encouraged to get involved in advocacy. As David Totaro likes to say, “a rising tide lifts all boats”, and collective advocacy is necessary regardless of who does it – we are all allies in advocacy.

The Start of a Movement

In 2014, the concept of Hearts for Home Care (H4HC) was created when GAO codified the idea that legislators could understand home care’s impact much better through individuals’ unique stories—not just through professional lobbyists’ words and data points. In 2019, after BAYADA became a not-for-profit organization, H4HC operationally separated from the company to continue our lobbying efforts and begin to grow our nationwide movement of like-minded individuals advocating for the betterment of the home care ecosystem.

New Identity, Original Roots

Today, H4HC has grown into a brand that encompasses many individuals, families, and professionals beyond BAYADA’s reach. We are a diverse group of over 7,000 like-minded individuals across the US who care about home care and make it our mission to show state and federal decision makers that they need to care about home care too. And although H4HC has developed its own identity, our roots are in BAYADA who made advocacy a fundamental part of what we do and who we are. Even now at state and federal Advocacy Days in Capitols across the country, BAYADA shows up in a sea of red to advocate for their clients, caregivers, and families to ensure legislators understand the importance of care at home – all because of the inspiration and leadership that began with Mark Baiada.