Michigan EVV Requirements 2026: A Guide for Home Care Agencies

Most EVV mandates change how a visit is recorded. Michigan's latest change goes further than that, and it is the reason this page leads with it rather than with vendors or dates.

On 1 January 2026, MDHHS implemented a hard cutover for managed care home health care service codes requiring EVV. From that date, claims for those services have to be submitted through the state EVV system. Claims sent directly to the Medicaid Health Plan payment system for EVV services are denied.

That is a different kind of requirement. Before it, EVV was something that had to be true about your visit records. After it, EVV is also the channel your claim travels down. An agency can be capturing visits impeccably and still not get paid, if the claim is going where it used to go.

It also explains a detail from the state contract that otherwise looks like trivia. When MDHHS awarded HHAeXchange the EVV contract in March 2023, the scope covered data collection, data aggregation and a pre-billing module. The billing role was designed in from the beginning.

If you deliver managed care home health in Michigan and have not confirmed how your claims are reaching the plan since January, that is the first thing to check rather than anything else on this page.

MDHHS decided on an open vendor model, and describes it in those words. In practice that means two options, both legitimate.

• Use HHAeXchange, the state system, at no cost. Providers and managed care organizations may use it free. It satisfies the requirement on its own, and choosing it is a complete answer rather than a compromise.
• Use an alternate system of your choosing that directly integrates with HHAeXchange. You pay for that system yourself.

Nobody in Michigan has to purchase EVV software in order to comply. Any vendor suggesting otherwise is describing a sales position rather than state policy, and it is worth noticing when a vendor does that, because it tells you something about the rest of what they will tell you.

Michigan is an open vendor state, with a specific condition attached: an alternate system has to directly integrate with HHAeXchange.

Since the January 2026 cutover, that integration carries more weight than it used to. It is no longer only the path your visit data takes to reach the state. For EVV-required managed care home health codes it is bound up with how the claim gets submitted at all.

So the questions to put to any vendor selling into Michigan are narrower than the usual feature conversation:

• Are you directly integrated with HHAeXchange in Michigan today, and for how many agencies?
• After the January 2026 cutover, what exactly is the billing path for managed care home health codes, and which system does the claim originate from?
• What do I see when a record is rejected by HHAeXchange rather than merely captured by you?

Confirm the billing answer with MDHHS and your health plan as well as with the vendor. It is the part most likely to be described optimistically.

Michigan implemented EVV well after the federal deadlines, and was incurring a federal financial penalty for not having implemented it for personal care services. That is a fact about the state's position rather than a comment on providers, and it explains why the Michigan sequence looks compressed compared with earlier states.

• March 2023: MDHHS awarded HHAeXchange a five-year EVV contract covering data collection, aggregation and a pre-billing module.
• 1 April 2024: EVV required for home health care services for Medicaid fee-for-service providers.
• 3 September 2024: soft launch for managed care home health. EVV required for dates of service on or after this date, but with no financial penalties during the training period.
• Early September 2024: go live for MI Choice, MI Health Link and behavioral health personal care services.
• 1 January 2026: hard cutover for managed care home health codes requiring EVV.

The federal deadlines, for reference, were 1 January 2020 for personal care services and 1 January 2023 for home health. A state running late is common rather than remarkable, and what matters to your agency is the current position rather than the history.

Four questions, in order, will tell a Michigan agency where it stands.

• Are any of your services managed care home health with EVV-required codes? If yes, the January 2026 cutover applies to you and the billing route question is live.
• Where are those claims currently originating? If the answer is your existing billing system going straight to the health plan, verify that has actually changed.
• Are you on HHAeXchange or an alternate system? If alternate, confirm the direct integration is current, not merely configured at some point in the past.
• Have you reconciled paid claims against submitted claims since January? A denial pattern that started at a cutover date is easy to miss if nobody is looking for it.

MDHHS publishes the list of EVV-required service codes, and that list rather than a general description is what determines whether a particular service is caught.

This page covers EVV as it affects home care and home health agencies billing Michigan Medicaid. It does not cover:

• Home Help individual and non-live-in caregiver arrangements, which MDHHS documents separately
• MI Choice and MI Health Link program rules beyond their EVV go-live
• Behavioral health program requirements, which are in scope for EVV but operate under their own guidance
• Individual health plan requirements, which sit on top of the state rules
• Billing rates, authorizations or licensure

MDHHS maintains an Electronic Visit Verification section with provider updates, frequently asked questions for caregivers and providers, and the list of EVV-required service codes. That material is authoritative and more current than any third-party summary, this page included.

For questions about a specific member or a specific denial, start with the Medicaid Health Plan that member is enrolled in. Plans have issued their own bulletins about the cutover, and a denial is usually easier to diagnose from the payer end.

For technical questions about integration or the pre-billing module, the relevant contact is HHAeXchange as the state system vendor.

Last reviewed 2 August 2026. Michigan changed its billing arrangements for EVV services in January 2026 and guidance has continued to follow, so verify anything affecting a compliance or billing decision directly with MDHHS or your health plan before acting on it. CareVerify is not affiliated with MDHHS or HHAeXchange.