Ohio EVV Requirements 2026: A Guide for Home Care Agencies

Ohio EVV is in the middle of a change as this page is written, which is unusual enough to lead with.

On 7 July 2026 Governor DeWine signed Senate Bill 315, the Ohio Medicaid Program Integrity and Fraud Prevention Act, into law. The General Assembly had passed the revised bill on 10 June 2026. It began as legislation about SNAP card security and was amended to carry substantial Medicaid fraud reforms.

This followed an announcement on 13 May 2026 of Medicaid fraud prevention initiatives bringing enhanced oversight to Ohio's home health and hospice provider system, including updates to EVV requirements.

The relevance to your agency is that Senate Bill 315 requires program modifications affecting Ohio Medicaid's state vendor, the 75 or more approved alternate EVV vendors, and all pending applications.

If you are reading older Ohio EVV guidance, check its date. Anything written before mid-2026 predates this.

The immediate, practical consequence: processing of all Alternate EVV vendor applications is temporarily paused until updated program requirements are established.

ODM has explained the reasoning, which is sensible rather than obstructive. The pause avoids issuing approvals that would require immediate recertification once the new requirements take effect.

What this means depending on where you are:

• Planning to move to an alternate vendor. You cannot start that process right now. Use the free Sandata system in the meantime rather than waiting in limbo.
• Application already pending. It is caught in the pause. Ask ODM where it sits and what happens when processing resumes.
• Already using an approved alternate vendor. ODM has said maintaining continuity of care and stability of existing services remains a priority, and that additional guidance will be issued as program changes are finalized. Ask your vendor what they have been told directly.

Because this is live and moving, treat this section as the part of this page most likely to be out of date. Check ODM's EVV page before acting on it.

Setting the current pause aside, Ohio's underlying model gives agency providers and independent providers a choice.

The Sandata system, free

Ohio Medicaid provides the Sandata EVV solution at no cost. Providers can choose the data collection method that best fits how they work. For a small agency this is the path with the least friction, and given the application pause it is currently the only path open to anyone not already on an alternate system.

An ODM-certified alternate EVV solution

Alternatively, an alternate system that collects the required EVV data elements and submits the data to ODM. Ohio has an unusually large ecosystem here, with more than 75 approved alternate vendors, which tells you the state has been running this model for a while and that plenty of software already interfaces with it.

Ohio Medicaid launched its EVV solution in 2018, ahead of the federal deadlines described on our Cures Act page. That head start explains both the size of the vendor ecosystem and the relative maturity of the program.

Ohio has phased in claims validation rather than switching it on at once. ODM has been rolling out claims validation in seven phases, under which a claim requiring EVV must have a matching EVV visit record when it is submitted.

The mechanism is the same one that matters everywhere: a claim without a matching verified visit is a claim with a problem. The phasing means which services are subject to validation depends on where your service codes sit in the schedule.

ODM publishes an EVV Program and Service Code Guide setting out services and effective dates. That document, rather than a summary like this one, is what to check against your own service codes.

Ohio is specific about both, and two details catch agencies out.

Registration. New providers request an EVV account through the Sandata EVV Provider Self Registration portal, selecting the Ohio Department of Medicaid from the dropdown and entering their Medicaid ID and EIN or TIN.

One account per Medicaid ID. Providers with more than one Ohio Provider Medicaid ID must obtain an EVV account for each Provider Medicaid ID subject to EVV. If you operate under multiple IDs, one registration does not cover you.

Training is required, and the right person must do it. Agencies should assign a lead EVV administrator to complete the ODM Sandata EVV Overview for Agency Providers training, and specifically not a direct care worker. Independent providers are both administrator and direct care worker and complete the independent provider version.

The instruction not to send direct care workers to the administrator training is worth following. The administrator course covers the portal, exception handling and account management, which is office work rather than field work.

One Ohio detail worth knowing because it affects what caregivers do at the door: location is recorded in real time at both the start and the end of the visit, and is reported as either occurring in the individual's home or in the community.

That home-or-community distinction is a categorization the visit record carries, not just a coordinate. Make sure caregivers understand which they are selecting and why, because a community visit recorded as a home visit is a wrong record even when the times are right.

Ohio publishes a formal EVV Exemption Request form, which is something most states do not offer at all.

We are not going to tell you what qualifies, because we could not verify the criteria from an official source and guessing at exemption eligibility would be a genuinely harmful thing to get wrong. What we can tell you is that the route exists and is documented, so if you believe your situation warrants one, there is a defined process rather than an informal conversation.

The form and its instructions are on ODM's site, linked below.

Things we could not establish clearly enough from an official source to publish:

• Ohio's specific compliance dates for personal care and home health services. Ohio launched EVV in 2018 and phases claims validation across seven phases, so a single date would misrepresent it. The EVV Program and Service Code Guide has the effective dates by service.
• What the Senate Bill 315 changes will actually require. ODM has said guidance will follow. Nobody outside ODM can tell you yet, and any vendor claiming to know what the new requirements are is guessing.
• Exemption criteria. The form exists; who qualifies is a question for ODM.
• Managed care plan variations. Ohio delivers much of its Medicaid care through managed care, and whether individual plans add requirements is worth asking each plan.

• Ohio Medicaid EVV: medicaid.ohio.gov EVV, including the EVV Resource Guide and the Program and Service Code Guide
• EVV Exemption Request form: medicaid.ohio.gov exemption request
• Home health agency support: 855-805-3505
• Your managed care plans, individually
• Your alternate EVV vendor, if you use one, for what they have been told about the Senate Bill 315 changes