Action | Electronic Visit Verification |
Stage | Proposed |
Comment Period | Ended on 3/21/2020 |
EVV feels like just one more way to marginalize persons with disabilities and their families/caregivers. It denotes mistrust of families to care for our loved ones in a straightforward, honest way. All of what we are currently experiencing with the benefits that were designed for us to keep our loved ones out of institutional care and engaged in the community smacks of corporate greed and catering to the bottom-line/corporate profit, rather than to the needs of the beneficiary. The fact that the care of the most vulnerable among us is being dictated by HMO's in the first place is obscene. The very idea that "trimming the fat" from the most vulnerable is the correct path to ensuring maximum corporate profit is at the root of the trend that is in the processing of actually causing the death of our most vulnerable (the least among us). Being tied to clocking in and out, rather than attending to the needs of the client is counterproductive, sometimes dangerous, and an extreme invasion of privacy. Our caregivers often pick my daughter up at school or meet us at various places in the community. Being accurate with clocking in at the exact moment that service provision begins is a potentially life-threatening distraction from ensuring my daughter's safety in that moment. For caregivers to be penalized for not clocking in at the moment that service begins... or forgetting to clock out at the end of a long, typically tiring shift is unconscionable. Our primary caregiver carries a cell phone so that she can communicate with me as needed, but is NOT tech savvy, and this practice feels like a tremendous hurdle for her. The stress of keeping up with this tracking method could actually cause us to lose competent, dedicated, long-term staff. The very idea that these benefits need ANY more trimming is ludicrous, when caregivers who are required to have extraordinary qualifications and perform intense caregiving tasks are STILL only making $9.22/hr, when the absolute minimum that should be expected for this type of work is $20/hr.