Effective July 1, 2008, districts may be reimbursed by Medicaid for personal care services. Note: If a paraprofessional is federally funded, personal care services cannot be logged.

Definition of Personal Care Services: 

Personal Care Services are a range of human assistance services provided to persons with disabilities and chronic conditions which enable them to accomplish tasks they would normally do for themselves if they did not have a disability. Assistance may be in the form of hands-on assistance or cuing so that the person performs the task by him/herself.

Billing Requirements: 

Personal care services must be authorized by a physician or other licensed practitioner operating within their scope of practice. The "other licensed practitioner" could be of the same discipline as the service in question. For instance, a licensed occupational therapist could authorize the provision of services, as long as doing so is within their scope of practice. The signature of a licensed practitioner on the IEP constitutes annual authorization.

Personal Care Services: Services may include, but are not limited to, assistance with the following:

• Eating/feeding;

• Respiratory assistance;

• Toileting;

• Grooming;

• Dressing;

• Transferring;

• Ambulation;

• Personal hygiene;

• Mobility/Positioning;

• Meal preparation;

• Skin care;

• Bathing;

• Maintaining continence;

• Assistance with self administered medications;

• Redirection and intervention for behavior; and

• Health related functions through hands-on assistance, supervision and cueing.

Documentation: 

Personal care services must be medically necessary and the need for the service documented in the student's IEP/IFSP.  To include personal care services on the IEP, you must follow the steps on the personal care tip sheet.  Please contact Andrea VanSloten, Medicaid Coordinator, for this form.

All Medicaid documentation must be kept on file for seven years.

Process for Tracking and Reporting Services

Personal Care Checklist/Data Entry: 

A completed, signed and dated activity checklist must be completed for each student for whom personal care services will be reported.  Districts have the option to use either a monthly or weekly checklist, or they may create their own.  Please contact Andrea VanSloten, Medicaid Coordinator, for access to monthly and weekly checklist templates.

The checklist process should work as follows:

1. Each paraprofessional will record the services they render to each student on their checklist on a daily basis.

2. At the end of the week (or month), the paraprofessional will log their personal care services into the Medicaid module of the Illuminate logging web site.