Timesheets

This page is for when you have hired a worker.

Your worker records their hours. You check them and approve them. The financial management service (FMS) pays the worker after you approve. Each FMS has its own way to do this: a phone app, a website or paper. Ask for its pay calendar so you and your worker know when timesheets are due.

For respite and nursing, each visit is also checked in and out electronically. This is called electronic visit verification. Ask your FMS how it works. A worker who lives in your home may not have to do it. Ask your FMS about the form for a live-in worker.

Staying within your hours

The FMS can only pay for the hours your regional center approved. The FMS sends you a report each month. If you find you need more hours, ask your service coordinator for a planning meeting.

Overtime

Overtime rules apply to your worker. They depend on the kind of work, the hours in a day and the hours in a week. Talk to your FMS before one worker works more than eight hours in a day or more than 40 hours in a week. It can tell you whether overtime is owed and whether your approved hours cover it. Having a second worker is one way to keep each worker's hours down.

Changing or adding a worker

You can add a worker or replace one. A new worker has to send their paperwork to the FMS and be approved before they start, the same as the first one. It helps to have a backup worker approved ahead of time.

Switching back

You can ask to go back to getting the service the traditional way. Tell your service coordinator. California's agreement with the federal government says the people it covers can switch back at any time, with a planning meeting to arrange the change without a break in services.

If your regional center wants to end it

California's agreement with the federal government says a regional center can end participant-directed services if it finds that your health and safety are not being supported. It can also end them if the services cannot be confirmed.

It says that if you disagree with the change, you get a written notice and can appeal. It also says a planning meeting is held to make the change without a break in services.

A shorter deadline to keep a service going. If a notice says a service you have now will end or change, appeal within 30 days of getting the notice, and no later than the date of the change. In most cases that keeps the service going during the appeal.