On Monday, President Trump signed a bill delaying the implementation of new Electronic Visit Verification requirements for the states by one year. The national association ANCOR worked to build a bi-partisan coalition of Senators and Representatives to draft and pass the legislation out of congress.
What does the EVV delay entail?
From the ANCOR statement announcing the signed bill:
"States now have until January 1, 2020, to begin compliance with the EVV law. States can also apply for a good-faith extension that would extend the deadline until January 1, 2021. In addition, the legislation signed into law this week mandates that input from the public is solicited to help ensure the thoughtful implementation of the EVV requirement."
What does this mean for Minnesota and ARRM Members?
While delayed, states are continuing to push forward with EVV implementation to avoid potential issues with falling out of compliance, although now have additional time to seek input from the public, and providers, care staff and importantly, people receiving services. The immediate reaction from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is to take a step back and reassess its approach and timelines.
On the advocacy side, many organizations have been looking at legislation to give specific direction to DHS to ensure providers aren't harmed by the eventual implementation of EVV. This includes a bill introduced during the 2018 Legislative Session which defined what EVV is, what services it would apply to, and required the Commissioner to ensure that there is at least one system available for providers to use that would not be an additional cost to them.
As ARRM has previously reported, while the EVV requirement legislation was originally created specifically with addressing perceived issues in PCA and home health aid services in mind, the rumblings from federal and state regulators was that a form of requirements would likely be extended to most or all HCBS waiver services.
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