Washington EVV requirements: DSHS and HCA

Washington EVV on a calendar

Home health went live in 2024 without denials; DSHS bulletin H25-064 schedules personal care denials in three steps across 2026.

Every row cites its Washington text, read October 29, 2026.

Washington, in its own words

On how the 2026 change was paced, Department of Social and Health Services bulletin H25-064 of December 10, 2025 says the ProviderOne edits will be “set to deny claims without required elements” and will move “one element at a time.” On place, the guide attached to it says: “DSHS does not track the location of caregiver employees or clients receiving care during visits.” It goes on to say the location is given just when a service begins and when it ends. On home health, the Health Care Authority FAQ of November 2023 is brief: “HCA chose the provider choice model.”

Personal care and respite under DSHS

The guide attached to Department of Social and Health Services bulletin H25-064 of December 10, 2025 lists six elements a personal care or respite claim carries: the service code, the client ID, the date, the servicing provider’s ID (SSSOP ID), when service began and ended, and the location, as latitude and longitude, at both ends. Through 2025 the edits paid and reported. The attached guide adds that denials reach claims submitted after January 1, 2026 even for earlier dates of service, that a manual claims indicator marks an element added by office staff without letting it be left blank, and that direct-entry claims whose data was all collected electronically carry code BPEV01. A ProviderOne newsletter of December 2025 calls it a phased change between January and July 2026.

Location, landlines and corrections

The October 2025 guide asks for latitude and longitude to four decimal places when a shift opens and when it closes, and does not allow a 0.0000 placeholder. It also lets a caregiver dial in from the client’s landline, which gives the landline’s location, while a plain call from a mobile phone does not count. The guide also bars a system from refusing a clock-in or clock-out because of where the caregiver is, so a client can still receive care out in the community. Under the guide attached to Department of Social and Health Services bulletin H25-064 of December 10, 2025, each manual entry or later change needs a written reason and data is kept at least six years. The proximity and client sign-off fields stay optional, and the guide says no claim is decided on them.

Home health under the Health Care Authority

On its home health EVV page, the Health Care Authority tells providers to choose and pay for their own EVV product, with the visit location written as an address in the claim’s service facility fields, for service dates from January 1, 2024. Its November 2023 FAQ said such claims would get technical assistance rather than denials, and a Medicaid provider alert of January 29, 2025 confirmed that period was still running, removed the NPI step and promised a redesign. The June 10, 2025 deck assumed every provider already has an EVV product; no later decision was found.

Statute and rulemaking

RCW section 74.39A.515 tells the consumer directed employer to run an EVV system that meets federal terms, or else check a statistically valid sample of claims. No adopted Washington EVV rule turned up: DSHS filed a preproposal for a new chapter 388-05B in 2024, and HCA filed two for its home health rules, but neither code index shows the section yet.

Reported, not confirmed

Search snippets credited to DSHS and to Consumer Direct Care Network Washington say that individual providers living with their client stay outside EVV and keep using timesheets. Both sites were blocked here, so the claim appears here as reported and carries no weight.

Not covered

The DSHS EVV page, its home care agency FAQ and the training decks did not load, and no 2026 DSHS text read here confirms that any of the three 2026 steps, the July 1, 2026 location step included, started on time. Nobody opened the health plan contracts either.

LockProof and Washington EVV

Washington’s visits reach the state through each agency’s own EVV product. A LockProof photo is for other eyes: someone in the family, or a private-pay client, who would like to see that the caregiver came. More on keeping a photo tool next to EVV, and on how a caregiver visit photo is recorded.

As of this reading

A DSHS bulletin issued after October 29, 2026, when these Washington texts were read, could change any of it. The other states are listed on our EVV state index, and California, down the coast, has a page of its own.