EVV stands for electronic visit verification: an electronic record, captured at the point of care, proving that a Medicaid-funded visit happened as billed. It exists because the 21st Century Cures Act told states to require it, and it matters to an agency because it sits between the work your carers do and the money the payer sends. This page explains what the record contains, what it does not, and what an auditor means when they call a visit compliant.
What the record has to contain
A compliant visit record carries six things: the type of service performed, the individual receiving the service, the individual providing it, the date of the service, the location of service delivery, and the time the service begins and ends. That list is the whole federal requirement. States add their own rules on top, which is why two agencies in different states can run the same software and follow different processes.
What EVV tracking is not
EVV tracking is a visit record, not a surveillance product. It captures location at clock-in and clock-out, not a continuous trail through the client's home, and the honest way to explain that to a nervous carer is to show them the record their own visit produced. Agencies that treat it as a monitoring tool get the turnover they deserve; agencies that treat it as the evidence behind the invoice get carers who clock in without being chased.
What makes a visit EVV compliant
Three things, in practice: the six data points are present, they were captured at the time and place of the visit rather than typed in afterwards, and the record reached the state aggregator in a format it accepted. Most rejections are the third. An exception is not automatically fraud, but a pattern of manual edits is exactly the pattern a payer's audit is designed to find, so the fix is to reduce edits rather than to get better at explaining them.
How to answer a carer who asks what EVV system you use
Give the plain answer: the name of the app, the fact that it records when and where a visit starts and ends, that it does not read messages or track them between visits, and that the record is what pays their wage. Agencies who write this into their onboarding pack and their policy manual have far fewer disputes than those who let each scheduler explain it their own way.
Questions people ask about what is evv
Does EVV apply to every home care visit?
It applies to Medicaid-funded personal care services and Medicaid-funded home health services. Private-pay and most long-term care insurance visits are outside the mandate, though most agencies capture them the same way for consistency.
Who chose the EVV system my agency has to use?
Your state did, at least in part. States run open models, where an agency brings its own vendor and transmits to an aggregator, and closed models, where the state supplies the system. Which one you are in decides how much of this is a purchasing decision at all.
Can a visit be verified by phone instead of an app?
Yes. Telephony capture from the client's landline is an accepted method in most states and is often the most reliable option in rural areas or where a client will not have a smartphone in the house. Good systems support app, telephony and a fixed device in the home.
What happens if a visit fails verification?
It becomes an exception your office has to resolve before the claim goes out. Resolution usually means a documented manual entry with a reason. Every state tolerates some exceptions; none tolerate a habit of them, and the exception rate is the number to watch monthly.