Pay, payroll and taxes
Two things about attendant pay surprise people, and both are good news: you are a real employee with real withholding, and the person you care for never pays you directly.
You are an employee, not a contractor
Communicare Elite is your employer of record. That means:
- Payroll on a regular, scheduled cycle.
- Federal, state and FICA taxes withheld from your pay.
- A W-2 at the end of the year — not a 1099.
- Employment records you can point to for a loan, a lease or a benefits application.
- No self-employment tax bill waiting for you in April.
If a vendor offers to pay you as a 1099 contractor or in cash for this work, treat it as a warning sign. It shifts the entire tax burden onto you and it is not how the program is meant to operate.
What determines your pay
Your hourly rate depends on the reimbursement the program provides and on the terms agreed when you are hired. We do not publish a rate on this page, for a straightforward reason: rates change, and a stale number on a website is worse than no number. We will tell you the current rate when we speak, before you commit to anything.
What we can tell you plainly: the hours you can be paid for are capped by the consumer’s authorized care plan. If their plan authorizes twenty hours a week, twenty hours is what can be billed — regardless of how much time you actually spend with them.
Getting paid, step by step
- You work the hours the consumer scheduled, within their authorized plan.
- You record each visit through electronic visit verification.
- At the end of the biweekly period, you and the consumer both review and sign the timesheet.
- The timesheet reaches us by the deadline.
- We verify it against the care plan and the EVV record.
- Payroll runs and you are paid, with taxes withheld.
The three things that delay pay
| Problem | What happens | How to avoid it |
|---|---|---|
| Late timesheet | Usually rolls to the next pay cycle | Put the submission deadline on a calendar and submit early |
| Missing a signature | Cannot be processed until corrected | Check both signatures before submitting |
| Hours exceed the authorized plan | The excess is not billable and cannot be paid | Know the weekly authorization and track against it |
If your pay is wrong
Call (314) 809-6655 with the pay period dates and your timesheet. If the error is ours, we fix it — we do not make you wait a full cycle for our mistake. If the timesheet was late or short, we will tell you straight and show you exactly what happened.
Never do this
Never ask a consumer to sign a blank timesheet, and never sign for hours you did not work. Claiming unworked hours is Medicaid fraud. It ends your employment, can end your ability to work in care at all, and carries repayment and criminal exposure. It also puts the consumer — who signed alongside you — at risk. Read the program integrity page →
Questions about pay? Ask before you start.
Call (314) 809-6655 for a free consultation, or text (314) 886-5902. We serve St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Missouri communities within about 40 miles of our office.