Electronic Visit Verification

[yvette-haas]

I was supposed to switch almost a year ago, but I plan to avoid it until absolutely necessary. The whole thing is going to make me really mad, so I’m’ silently protesting. The concept of taking several minutes, twice per shift, just sounds completely insane. Also, it’s going to seriously complicate figuring out how to put my Mom in the schedule. Uhggggg

[dennis-turner]

In Massachusetts some home care companies are using it to help keep track and prevent fraud. It was used by one that provided for my mother in law. The workers were quickly able to check in and out. Not a big problem as long as their phone worked.

[kip-troendle]

Iowa starts 01/01/21, and it’s gonna be a real pain.  I decided to bit the bullet and start 10 days ago for the month of December.  Before I begin with the negatives, I give kudos to CareBridge (they are the scheduling company that developed the EVV technology).

I have my mother as my primary CDAC provider, with my local homecare community service coming in the mornings M-F.  The homecare service hasn’t even started teaching their staff how to use EVV!  That scares me and has me wondering if they might stop taking Medicaid patients all together.

I learned A LOT about setting up EVV for mom.  Since many of us have one primary caregiver, scheduling can seem quit overwhelming.  They are on the clock pretty much 24/7, right?  CareBridge told me they are aware of this.  They instructed me (and this is very helpful) to submit our daily allowed units all in one “block”.  So mom is authorized about 4 hours per day for helping me.  Instead of having her check in and out 5 or 6 times per day, I just check her in once for 4 hours.  The EVV portal tracks the % of units used per hour of the authorized month, which is useful.  It’s going to take time getting use to it, and CareBridge is updating their software daily, but hopefully it will be worth it.

I’ve heard many homecare providers are getting out of the business because they don’t want to deal with EVV.  If that’s true, it’s going to be our responsibility to educate ourselves, setup EVV on our phones, and help with this “thing”.

[robert-stump]

We have had it here in Ohio for most providers for over 2 years.  It is a pain, and seems like one more unnecessary step to discourage workers from entering this field.  I pretty much manage the billing for all of my providers anyway to keep them happy and free of the nonsense, so helping each of them set up EVV and helping manage everything for them in that regard is just one more thing I need to do besides trying to stay alive and COVID free.

Just take your time and learn everything you can about it and don’t stress about implementing it right when you first start using it.  There is a learning curve to it and here in Ohio providers had 6 months at least to try it out before it even made a difference in official reporting for billing purposes.  Even now Ohio is just starting to dip their toes into matching it up with billing, so it’s obvious that everyone from the top down understands that this is a major shift in how we do things and are trying to give people lots of time and practice to get it right before it counts.

Of course, in an ideal world this EVV crap would go away, but it just sounded too perfect of an answer for “fraudulent Medicare/Medicaid billings” fear that have been completely overblown when it comes to the lowly homecare worker.  Some sneaky congressmen and senators tucked it away in some barely understood legislation at the end of Obama’s last term, and no one knew the significance of it until states were grappling with the requirement to implement it.  This would’ve been one of those times when it would have been better for the government to NOT have worked to pass the bill.

[nikki]

Hey sweet @alyssa, so I have been part of an ad hoc advocate group that has been fighting against this in California. Nobody we know wants it, including providers and clients. We are very frustrated and it feels very violating to us as recipients. It puts us in question as to where we are , and whether or not our caregivers are with us the entire time during their shift. So for example, if hypothetically, I send a caregiver out to do grocery shopping while I spend time with a boyfriend, there is no way to not report that. That’s an aspect that people are not looking at. They are only looking at the hours in and hours out, the hassle of having to physically check in for those of us with mobility issues, and the caregivers don’t want to be troubled with having to check in and out. Beyond all that, as I stated above, there is a human rights violation to the privacy of my life. If you wish to get on board with this advocate adventure, contact me.