A free EVV system is a real thing, not a trap: in closed and hybrid model states, the state contracts an aggregator and provides an agency-facing system at no cost to the provider. Whether it is enough for your agency depends less on price than on how many payers you serve and how much rekeying you are willing to do. This page sets out what the free option actually covers and the point at which agencies outgrow it.
What the state's system does well
It captures compliant visits and it gets them accepted, which is the whole job. It is certified against the aggregator by definition, it is updated when the state changes the format, and nobody has to renegotiate a contract when that happens. For a single-programme Medicaid agency, the state system plus a spreadsheet is a genuinely workable operation, and any vendor who tells you otherwise is selling.
Where it stops
The free system knows about one payer's visits. It does not know your private-pay clients, your care plans, your carer availability or your invoices, so every one of those lives somewhere else and somebody joins them up by hand. The moment your office is retyping the state's screen into your scheduling system, the free option has a price, and it is paid in administrator hours rather than licence fees.
Choosing among EVV vendors by state
Which aggregator you face is a fact about your state, not a choice: agencies encounter Sandata, HHAeXchange, Netsmart, CareBridge and Tellus depending on where they operate. What is a choice is whether you use the aggregator's own provider portal or a third-party electronic visit verification app that transmits to it. Ask any third-party vendor for their current certification in your state and the date of it, and check it against the state's published list rather than the vendor's.
The multi-state test
Agencies operating across a state line usually leave the free option first, because two states means two portals, two exception queues and two sets of rules for the same carer. At that point the question stops being what EVV costs and becomes what one visit record across both states is worth. It is normally worth more than the software.
Questions people ask about free evv system
Is the state's free EVV system genuinely free?
For the agency, in closed and most hybrid model states, yes: the state pays the aggregator. What is not free is the labour of running a second system alongside your own records, which is the cost most agencies underestimate.
Can we switch from the state system to our own vendor later?
In open and hybrid model states, usually yes, and agencies do it routinely. Ask your prospective vendor to handle the enrolment with the aggregator and to overlap with the state system for a full billing cycle before you cut over.
Do free systems handle telephony as well as an app?
Most do, because a state system has to serve every provider including those with clients who have no smartphone in the house. Confirm it before you rely on it, particularly for rural routes.
How do we know which EVV vendor our state uses?
The state Medicaid agency publishes it, and the list changes when contracts are re-let. Check the state's own page rather than a vendor comparison site, which will often be a year out of date.