In-home supportive services: provider timesheets.

Existing law provides for the county-administered In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons are provided with services in order to permit them to remain in their own homes and avoid institutionalization. Existing law permits services to be provided under the IHSS program either through the employment of individual providers, a contract between the county and an entity for the provision of services, the creation by the county of a public authority, or a contract between the county and a nonprofit consortium. Under existing law, the State Department of Social Services is required, in consultation and coordination with county welfare departments, to establish and implement statewide hourly task guidelines and instructions to provide counties with a standard tool for consistently and accurately assessing service needs and authorizing service hours to meet those needs. This bill would require the department, on or before December 31, 2011, to develop procedures to ensure that an IHSS provider receives a list specifying the approved duties to be performed for each recipient under the provider's care and a complete list of supportive service tasks available under the IHSS program.