How to Choose an EVV Vendor: Why Your Decision Impacts So Many Lives

Last Updated on July 31, 2026

Knowing how to choose an EVV vendor that meets both of those priorities is one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make for your program. The best solution for you is to ensure that your EVV systems are fully integrated into your FMS payment systems and the best way to ensure seamless system integration is to implement PPL’s EVV solution.

EVV technology uses your care/support worker’s smartphone or tablet to record their shift start time and location at the start time, then their shift end time and location at the end time. EVV helps ensure that participants receive consistent services.

In December 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act. This federal law set new rules requiring an EVV system to capture clock-in and clock-out times and location for Home and Community Based Services, including self-direction programs.

EVV benefits:

• Services are automatically validated and monitored, ensuring participants receive the services they need and that care/support workers are compensated correctly.
• Fraud risk is greatly reduced, ensuring that necessary funds are available to participants and making it easier for you to manage and fund legitimate claims.
• Time and cost savings with the elimination of the traditional paper verification process.
• Complete transparency on the services provided, by whom, when, and where. This gives you, care/support workers, and participants peace-of-mind and better control over spending and service delivery.

New to EVV or want a deeper dive on how it works? Read our full guide, What Is EVV? How It Works and Why It Matters.

A mobile application that integrates EVV and FMS lets your participants and their care/support workers comply with this federal law, while being as unobtrusive as possible. They simply record their time on this app, which automatically adheres to EVV rules, with no extra steps.

It’s important to remember that quality of care includes making it is as simple as possible for participants to receive and manage their care. The fewer steps participants have to go through to comply with EVV, the better. Think about how confused and frustrated these vulnerable populations would be moving between separate EVV and FMS vendors to complete time entry and get paid appropriately.

PPL’s FMS-integrated EVV systems offer these key benefits:

An integrated FMS and EVV solution means participants input their data only once, eliminating costly errors and frustrating questions.

It can be very difficult for some participants to adjust to new technology and guidelines. PPL’s solution includes an easy-to-use graphical interface.

No one wants to contact customer service, and when participants are expected to use two different systems for EVV and FMS, customer support becomes very complicated. An integrated EVV and FMS solution means participants need to contact only one customer service for questions about both EVV and their self-directed care.

You need an EVV system that recognizes that life happens. Participant schedules and care needs change. To deliver the high level of care participants deserve, you need an EVV solution that allows for change and flexibility on behalf of your participants and care/support workers.

Delivering and receiving home-based care should not be complicated or stressful.

You need to ensure that your care/support workers can focus on doing their job instead of learning new technologies. You also need to make sure that your participants are not overwhelmed with new technologies to learn and adapt to.

It all comes down to simplification and using one EVV and FMS solution that is designed with the needs of care/support workers and participants in mind.

As part of your responsibility to give your care/support workers high quality working conditions, you must make it easy for them to be paid on-time and correctly. The best way to do this is with an integrated EVV and FMS solution that puts your care/support workers and your ability to support them first.

PPL’s EVV solution benefits your care/support workers by:

• Saving Time: reduces the extra time previously required to enter notes, service details, and clock-in/clock-out time on paper timesheets.
• Reducing Errors: built-in reconciliation and validation to catch and correct errors before entries are submitted. This ensures timesheets are correct the first time, reducing delays in payment.
• Increasing Efficiency: real-time data capture means that care/support workers don’t have to duplicate information, speeding approval and reducing late timesheet entries.
• Instant Validation: ensures each time entry is validated against program payment rules and federal EVV rules at the same time. Doing so gives care/support workers immediate notification of any problems, which can then be corrected prior to payroll.

One of the largest barriers for your care/support workers are the delays that happen when working within a cumbersome system bound by numerous rules and regulations. Delays in timesheet validation, delays in real-time access to information about service and care availability, delays in program authorization, and more.

The EVV vendor landscape has matured significantly since EVV first became a federal requirement. States generally fall into one of three vendor models: closed, where the state mandates a single vendor that every provider must use; open, where providers and FMS companies can select their own vendor as long as it transmits data to the state’s designated EVV aggregator; or hybrid, where a state-provided system is available at no cost but providers can bring their own compliant alternative.

What’s changed most in the past few years isn’t the models themselves, it’s the enforcement behind them. In the early rollout years, most states focused on simply getting a compliant EVV system in place. Today, a growing number of states have moved to hard claims-matching enforcement, where a claim submitted without a matching EVV record is denied outright rather than flagged for review. States like Arizona have also recently shifted toward more open vendor models, giving programs more flexibility but also more responsibility for choosing a system that transmits clean, complete data.

That shift raises the stakes of your vendor decision. A disconnected EVV and FMS setup creates more opportunities for the kind of data gaps that now translate directly into denied claims, not just administrative friction. An integrated solution reduces that risk by design, since visit data and payment data are already working from the same source.

Learning how to choose an EVV vendor comes down to a few core questions worth asking of any solution you’re evaluating:

• Does it integrate with your FMS system, or will you be managing two separate platforms? Separate systems mean more points of failure and more opportunities for the kind of mismatched data that leads to denied claims.
• Does it meet your state’s specific EVV model requirements? Whether your state uses a closed, open, or hybrid model, your vendor needs to transmit data correctly to your state’s designated aggregator.
• How easy is it for participants and care/support workers to use? A vendor with a steep learning curve creates more support calls, more errors, and more frustration for the people relying on the system every day.
• What kind of reporting and visibility does it provide? You need clear insight into service delivery, timesheet status, and potential compliance issues, not just a pass/fail compliance checkbox.
• What does support look like after implementation? Ongoing training, responsive customer service, and a vendor that stays current with evolving state requirements matter as much as the initial setup.

Our mission at PPL is is to transform more lives by making self-directed home care easier for all. We know and believe that one of the best ways to do this is by streamlining how care is managed and delivered — making it easier for you, your care/support workers, and your participants to thrive.

And this is exactly why we developed our Time4Care™ mobile application. Our Time4Care solution is paired with our FMS system, making it simple for care/support workers and participants to record visit details and review and approve timesheets.

We put you first so you can put your care/support workers and participants first.

Choosing an integrated EVV and FMS vendor doesn’t have to be complicated. Time4Care brings both together in one easy-to-use mobile application, built for the people who rely on it every day.

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Contact us to learn how you can maintain the highest level of service delivery possible and streamline your operational requirements with PPL and Time4Care.