This may become a scandal of enormous proportion. The Feds have mandated that all in-home Health Care providers to Medicare and Medicaid clients employ GPS tracking apps on their phones so that their movements and associated work-hours may be monitored and recorded. If a HC provider does not comply or submits inaccurate reports the Feds will withhold payment to the State and the Agency that employs the HC provider. This is the stickler. The HC provider is responsible for acquiring a suitable smart-phone and must download the GPS app and reporting program from a privately held central record-keeping organization. If they cannot obtain a suitable phone @ + $100.00 + monthly time service charges and are unable to be tracked and/or file reports during work hours, taking away valuable hands-on time to the needy client, they won't get paid for performed services. There is an opportunity to edit reports at a later date with unpaid personal time, which is also problematic and perhaps illegal. This is in addition to filing the paper time and nursing notes reports to the provider's Health Care Agency. IOW, unpaid duplicate administrative record-keeping, taking away from allotted payable units on the client's Plan-Of-Care, the actual home-health care services. IMO, there is something very wrong with this. It smacks of being charged a fee to practice your profession. EVV System for In-Home Care Providers https://www.allgeo.com/blog/medicaid-electronic-visit-verification-app-for-homecare IMO, contrary to streamlining services provided to the client, valuable time will be spent on administrative services required of the HC providers, placing an additional burden on the HC provider for work that is not listed under the client's Plan-Of-Care and is not eligible for reimbursement. This is a typical federal strategy to shift administrative responsibility to the field worker who earns $10.00 - $15.00 p/hr, thereby saving on administrative expenses, but reducing hands-on care to the client. I predict a massive snafu when poor home health aides, some of which make only $10.00 p/hr, have to invest in an expensive smart-phone and data streaming services, in order to get paid for their health care services, regardless of their medical competency. The majority of health care providers are middle-aged semi-retired CNAs, that may not have a clue how a smartphone works and may not get paid regardless of their life-long medical experience. Home care in the U.S. - Statistics & Facts Published by John Elflein, Jul 28, 2020 https://www.statista.com/topics/4049/home-care-in-the-us/# 814,300 x $100 + = $ 81,430,000 investment by the Home Health providers for administrative purposes. If a client is unable to receive home health services they are remanded to Nursing homes at Taxpayer's cost of $6000.00-$9000.00 p/month depending on the level of care.
