Home care software built for California Medicaid EVV.
California routes EVV through Sandata (OpenEVV Alt-EVV). First Support Homecare captures every Medicaid visit with GPS clock-in and clock-out, coded reasons and an audit trail, and its Sandata connector is built to the published specification — the certification is completed with your agency as the sponsoring provider, at no cost to you.
AI does the paperwork: faxed referrals become client records and any PDF form becomes fillable in minutes. Your staff checks and signs, so a small office keeps up without another hire.
California's two EVV systems and who enforces them
California splits EVV in two. In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) and Waiver Personal Care Services run through the state's CMIPS payroll system and its electronic and telephonic timesheets, which is California's Phase I. Everything else - agency personal care, home health, and the other Medi-Cal programs - is Phase II, run by the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) on the CalEVV system. There, an agency uses the free CalEVV portal or an alternate (AltEVV) system that sends its visits to the CalEVV aggregator.
CMS approved California's good-faith exemption for personal care on October 22, 2019. Personal care went live on January 1, 2022 and home health on January 1, 2023. California also uses Jurisdictional Entities - for example, the HCBA waiver agencies - to monitor the providers in their programs. Medi-Cal managed care plans must apply EVV too, but they do not have to use the state-contracted system, and state law lets DHCS recover from a plan any federal funding lost because that plan did not comply.
| When | What changed in California |
|---|---|
| October 22, 2019 | CMS approves California's good-faith exemption for personal care. |
| January 1, 2022 | Phase II EVV live for personal care services. |
| January 1, 2023 | EVV live for home health care services. |
| March 23, 2023 | EVV live for CBAS Emergency Remote Services. |
"Verified" is not the same as compliant
A visit with an unresolved exception still counts as out of compliance even if it shows VERIFIED. The fix is made in the AltEVV system and the visit re-sent to the aggregator.
Live-in caregivers file an exemption
A caregiver who regularly stays in the home more than 24 hours at a time is exempt, but must complete the Live-In Caregiver exemption form (Information Notice 23-01).
Check out and back in
A non-live-in attendant working past midnight checks out at the end of the visit and back in the next day.
DHCS can sanction
For non-compliance DHCS can require a corrective action plan, recover overpayments, or impose enrollment or monetary sanctions.
One aggregator: Sandata's OpenEVV interface
California agencies live inside two sets of rules: California DHCS (CalEVV)'s, and Sandata's. The software was built to both — the state's EVV requirements in the visit record, Sandata's interface in the connector — so the agency does the work once and the aggregator gets it in its own format. Hybrid model — CalEVV Phase II.
Three endpoints, one order
Clients, then employees, then visits, each posted as JSON and polled to completion before the next — the appendix's own rule. The software does exactly that, and reads each record's verdict back into the visit.
Certified once per state
A vendor registers with Sandata, receives UAT credentials under a sponsoring provider in the state, passes the interface test, and is then on file for every later agency in that state.
The addendum decides the codes
Which identifier a caregiver is known by (SSN or a custom ID), which the client is, the payer and program IDs, the reason-code table and the ID formats all come from the state's addendum — and live on the account, not in code.
Everything Sandata requires is the same in every Sandata state - the element-by-element requirements, the onboarding steps and the common questions are on one page. How Sandata EVV works.
Book the demoWatch a visit go from the door to the state
Questions California agencies ask
Does IHSS use CalEVV?
No. IHSS and Waiver Personal Care Services use the CMIPS electronic and telephonic timesheet systems (California's Phase I). CalEVV covers the other Medi-Cal personal care and home health services.
Is a CalEVV visit with an exception still compliant if it says Verified?
No. DHCS treats a visit with unresolved exceptions as out of compliance. Correct it in your AltEVV system and re-send it to the CalEVV aggregator.
Do live-in caregivers need EVV in California?
No, if they regularly remain in the home more than 24 hours at a time - but they must complete the Live-In Caregiver exemption form.
Which California programs does this cover?
Personal care and home health under DHCS, and DDS regional-center services — every service California DHCS (CalEVV) requires EVV for. Alt-EVV vendors register in Sandata's Vendor Self-Registration Portal, complete testing, then issue a welcome letter to each provider. IHSS (self-directed) uses CDSS's own timesheet system and is not open to vendors.
Is there a free trial for California agencies?
Yes. California agencies that bill Medicaid and sign up by December 31, 2026 get 90 days free with no limit on clients: scheduling, the caregiver EVV app, documents, billing and the family portal. AI features are not part of the trial. Private-pay-only agencies get 15 days.
EVV in nearby states Arizona EVV · Nevada EVV · Oregon EVV
Sources DHCS — Electronic Visit Verification · DHCS - California Electronic Visit Verification · DHCS - CalEVV Phase II FAQ (January 2024) · DHCS - All Plan Letter 22-014 (EVV for managed care plans) · DHCS - CalEVV User Guide for Alternate EVV Providers · Medicaid.gov — EVV under the 21st Century Cures Act · First Support EVV — the Cures Act EVV requirement, explained
Also on Sandata Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin · How Sandata EVV works
See a visit go from clock-in to the Sandata queue.
Twenty minutes on a screen-share: clock-in, clock-out, and the Sandata record for that visit. If it is not a fit you will know in five.