Electronic visit verification

Electronic visit verification (often referred to as "EVV") was patented and invented by a nurse who also is a technologist, entrepreneur and Home Health Care Consultant and Domain Expert. In 1996 Michelle Boasten, RN designed and created the first clinical documentation information system for Home Health, Home Care and Hospice. EVV was one part of an overall and comprehensive design for the industry that sits under the umbrella term of "Home Health Care". Her invention and work are well documented. The exhaustive patent can be reviewed at the US Patent and Trademark website.

In 1999, Thomas Hoyer, the senior and Chief Policy Maker for Post-Acute Regulations for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly HCFA) invited Michelle Boasten, RN to the Baltimore CMS offices to demonstrate EVV. At that meeting, he congratulated the invention and predicted that it would take two decades to see EVV legislation requiring EVV to be mandated as a practice within every Medicare and Medicaid agency providing publicly funded home visits to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Mr. Hoyer's testimony regarding his work in Post-Acute Regulatory Policy can be found in the CMS Oral History Project that documents the design and implementation of all Medicare and Medicaid Regulations. This 874-page document at the CMS Website helps to explain to any reader the history of Medicare and Medicaid's design by those who created, drafted and authored the system.

Recognizing that EVV was a critical part of the entire documentation process, the patent covers the entire scope of the work. EVV has been sectioned out because of its enormous impact on bringing accountability to the industry. Indeed EVV is a method used to verify visit activity for Home Health (Skilled Service), Home Care (Personal Care Service) and Hospice (End-of-life Service) . This accountability measure will help to ensure that patients are not neglected. EVV can and should cut down on fraudulently documented home visits, and is the means of electronically verifying that a caregiver is physically present with the patient. EVV monitors locations of caregivers and is mandated by certain states, including Texas and Illinois. Other states do not mandate it, but use it as part of its Medicaid fraud oversight created by the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. It is also widely used by employers of home healthcare providers to verify employee's locations and hours of work as well as document patient care. Today, most states and other payers rely on EVV as a more effective monitoring tool than a hand-signed document.

...
Wikipedia