When Papa’s Family-on-Demand Model Goes Wrong
A gig economy solution exposes both a vulnerable population and its contractors.
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If you’ve been to an annual open enrollment fair in the past few years, you may have noticed a new eldercare benefit with the unusual name of Papa. Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plans offer it, as do a number of large employer-sponsored programs. It’s a gig economy version of home assistance, a family-on-demand TaskRabbit for seniors. Customers hire contractors from Papa’s network to come to their homes, hang out and chat, do household chores, chauffeur them to doctor appointments—basically anything shy of the most intimate work done by a traditional caregiver, such as bathing people or helping them use the bathroom. Customers are called “papas,” the contractors “pals.”