SENATE BILL REPORT

SSB 6453

As Passed Senate, February 18, 2014

Title: An act relating to verification of hours worked through electronic timekeeping by area agencies on aging and home care agencies.

Brief Description: Concerning verification of hours worked through electronic timekeeping by area agencies on aging and home care agencies.

Sponsors: Senate Committee on Health Care (originally sponsored by Senators Dammeier and Keiser; by request of Department of Social and Health Services).

Brief History:

Committee Activity: Health Care: 2/04/14, 2/06/14 [DPS].

Passed Senate: 2/18/14, 47-0.

Majority Report: That Substitute Senate Bill No. 6453 be substituted therefor, and the substitute bill do pass.

Signed by Senators Becker, Chair; Dammeier, Vice Chair; Pedersen, Ranking Member; Angel, Bailey, Cleveland, Keiser and Parlette.

Staff: Kathleen Buchli (786-7488)

Background: The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) contracts with Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) to provide case management services to consumers receiving home and community services in their own home. Case management responsibilities are set in statute and include the following: verification that individual providers have met training requirements, are performing their duties, and have passed background checks; monitoring a plan of care to verify that it meets the needs of the consumer; and verifying worker time sheets. The verification of worker time sheets requires AAA to verify a sample of paper time sheets kept by the individual providers who provide personal care services to clients.

A new electronic payment system, the ProviderOne Compensation Subsystem Services (PCSS), will be implemented in 2015. Under PCSS, individual providers will electronically report hours worked. PCSS will automatically generate a list of randomly selected time records and send requests to AAA asking for verification that the hours claimed were actually worked.

DSHS pays home care agencies for in-home personal care or respite services. By law, DSHS must verify the agency employee hours by electronic timekeeping. Electronic timekeeping means an electronic, verifiable method of recording an employee's presence in the client's home at the beginning and end of the employee's client visit. The method used for verification requires the use of a landline phone. In response to concerns that landline phones are not always available, the Legislature included a budget proviso in the 2013-15 operating budget that permitted DSHS to establish limited exemption criteria when a landline phone is not available to home care agency employees. The budget proviso permitting this exemption expires June 2015.

Summary of Substitute Bill: AAA must continue to verify a sample of worker time sheets using paper time sheets until PCSS is available for individual providers to record their hours.

DSHS may pay a home care agency for in-home personal care or respite services if electronic verification is not possible and the home care agency so verifies.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Available.

Committee/Commission/Task Force Created: No.

Effective Date: Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Staff Summary of Public Testimony on Original Bill: PRO: This addresses the transition from paper time sheets to a more accurate electronic system. This will be a system used to audit time sheets and because this can be done electronically, it will improve the auditing process and increase the number of time sheets audited. It makes sense to move in this direction once the ProviderOne system is in place.

Persons Testifying: PRO: Senator Dammeier, prime sponsor; Bill Moss, DSHS; Cathy Knight, State Director, WA Assn. of AAA.