Home visits1/24/2024 ![]() UHV staff can ask questions about services and the quality of the services. If you allow UHV staff to enter your home, UHV staff must tell you why he/she is there. If the county cannot verify the identity or the UHV staff has no identification, you can deny entry and it will not be counted towards the three attempts to which you are entitled to before further action is taken. 19 You can ask for identification and you can ask for a telephone number to call the county to verify the identity of the UHV staff. County welfare department officials must identify themselves, show photo identification, and wear badges. Do I have any rights when county welfare department officials come to my home? 17 The county can request that law enforcement accompany UHV staff. 16 Because counties are required to assign designated, trained staff to conduct UHVs, it is possible that UHV staff is also your County IHSS Social Worker. Trained county IHSS staff conduct the UHV. 14 A consequence can be losing your IHSS. 13 Lastly, it is an opportunity for UHV staff to remind you of the IHSS program rules, requirements, and the consequences for not following them. 12 It is also used to verify information in your file. The purpose of an UHV is to make sure that the services you have been authorized meet your needs at the level that allows you to remain safely in your home. State law defines “fraud” with respect to the IHSS program as the “intentional deception or misrepresentation made by a person with the knowledge that the deception could result in some unauthorized benefit to himself or herself or some other person.” 11 Note that this definition does not include unintended actions or mistakes. 9 The County will conduct UHVs for recipients on those lists. 7 List recipients are based on “some concern about the receipt or quality of recipient’s services, recipient’s services, recipient’s wellbeing, or other program integrity concerns.” 8 Counties may also add names to the UHV list for the same reasons. CDSS will generate lists of recipients who meet UHV criteria, and distribute those lists to the program integrity county contacts. 5 In other words, there needs to be some “articulable program integrity concern” 6 such as suspected fraud. Program integrity UHV staff cannot do random visits. When can county welfare department officials come to my home? Can county welfare department officials come to my home unannounced? 3 For more information about the differences between quality assurance and UHV activities, see All County Letter No. “QA home visits” are conducted by county quality assurance staff, not the case worker or his/her supervisor. UHVs are also different from home visits that the county does as part of its quality assurance program. 2 Check with your county about its unscheduled visits procedures. 1 Unscheduled visits for those purposes do not need to adhere to the program integrity UHV rules summarized in this publication. UHVs are different from counties’ unscheduled visits for non-UHV reasons such as: needs assessment, reassessment, or safety and welfare checks. One of the measures addressed in the Protocols is the program integrity unannounced home visits (UHVs). The stakeholder group developed the Uniform Statewide Protocols for Program Integrity Activities in the IHSS Program (Protocols). In 2009, California law was amended requiring the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to establish a stakeholder group to develop protocols for state and county roles and responsibilities for implementing integrity and fraud prevention measures in the IHSS program. IHSS social workers do these home visits. Home visits have always been part of the assessment or reassessment process for IHSS services.
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