Electronic visit verification
Electronic visit verification — EVV — is an electronic record that a home visit took place. It is required by federal law for Medicaid personal care services, and it applies to Consumer Directed Services in Missouri as it does everywhere else.
Why it exists
Section 12006 of the federal 21st Century Cures Act requires states to implement EVV for Medicaid personal care services, or face reductions in federal matching funds. Congress’s purpose was straightforward: personal care is delivered in private homes with no supervisor present, which made billing for visits that never happened both easy and common.
EVV is therefore not a Communicare Elite policy, a Missouri innovation, or something a vendor can waive. Any provider offering to let you skip it is offering to break federal law on your behalf.
What EVV records
Federal law specifies six data elements:
- The type of service performed.
- The individual receiving the service.
- The date of the service.
- The location of service delivery.
- The individual providing the service.
- The time the service begins and ends.
What EVV does not do
This is the part that worries people, so it is worth being precise. EVV captures the beginning and end of an authorized visit. It is not a camera. It is not a microphone. It does not record what is said or done in the home. It does not track an attendant’s movements between visits or during their own time. It is a timestamp with a location, not surveillance of your household.
Using it correctly
Do
- Record the start when work begins.
- Record the end when work finishes.
- Record in real time, at the home.
- Report system failures the same day.
- Keep your own note of actual times if the system fails.
Do not
- Record a whole week at once from memory.
- Record from your own home or car.
- Let anyone else record under your name.
- Record a visit that did not happen.
- Leave a discrepancy unreported and hope.
When EVV and the timesheet disagree
We reconcile them before payroll. A discrepancy holds the claim until it is resolved — which is inconvenient and is exactly the point. Tell us as soon as you know there is a problem; a same-day correction is routine, while a discrepancy discovered in an audit six months later is not.
Attendant guidance on EVV and timesheets →
If the technology is a barrier
Some homes have poor cell coverage, and some attendants are not comfortable with smartphones. Tell us rather than working around it — there are compliant alternatives, and improvising your own is what creates audit problems.
Trouble with EVV? Call before it becomes a pay problem.
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.