Home care software: what your agency needs for scheduling, EVV and HIPAA

What does home care software do?

Most home care software covers the same core jobs.

• Caregiver scheduling: Match caregivers to clients by skills, location, hours and client preference. Fill gaps when someone calls off.
• Visit verification: Caregivers clock in and out on a phone app at the client's home. This is the EVV record.
• Care plans and notes: Caregivers see the tasks for each visit and record what they did.
• Billing: Bill private-pay clients, Medicaid, the VA and insurers from the same visit records.
• Payroll: Turn verified visit hours, mileage and overtime into caregiver pay.
• Family updates: Give family members a portal or messages so they know a visit happened.
• Hiring and training: Track caregiver documents, background checks and required training.

Is home care software the same as home health care software?

They overlap, but they serve different agencies. Home care, often called personal care, helps people with daily tasks such as bathing, meals and getting around. Home health care is skilled medical care at home, such as nursing or therapy, often paid by Medicare.

Home health software needs more clinical tools. A Medicare home health agency must complete OASIS, the patient assessment that CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) uses. CMS lists OASIS-E2 as the current version, in effect from April 1, 2026. If you run a home health agency, confirm the software supports it.

What is EVV and does your agency need it?

EVV stands for electronic visit verification. It is a digital record that proves a caregiver showed up for a visit.

Section 12006 of the 21st Century Cures Act requires states to use EVV for some Medicaid services. These are personal care services and home health care services that involve an in-home visit. The deadline for personal care was January 1, 2020. The deadline for home health care was January 1, 2023. States that do not comply can lose up to 1% of their federal Medicaid match.

Each visit record must hold set details. Utah Medicaid, for example, lists these:

• Type of service: What care the caregiver gave.
• Client: Who received the care.
• Date: The day of the visit.
• Location: Where the care took place.
• Caregiver: Who gave the care.
• Times: When the visit started and ended.
• Record date: When the electronic record was created.

Each state runs EVV its own way. Utah, for example, lets agencies choose any EVV system that meets federal rules. Check your state Medicaid EVV page before you buy, and ask each vendor to show you that state's setup working.

If you only serve private-pay clients, Medicaid EVV rules may not apply to you. A private-pay agency can still use visit verification, because it settles billing questions and shows families that visits happened.

What does HIPAA mean for home care software?

If your agency is a HIPAA covered entity, the HIPAA Security Rule requires you to protect electronic health data. That includes care notes, medication lists and health details in the app. HHS lists safeguards such as a risk analysis, a login for each user, limits on who sees what, audit logs of who opened a record, and backups. You must keep your security policies and records for six years.

Caregivers use phones in the field, so device rules matter. Ask how the app protects data if a phone is lost and whether you can lock a caregiver out the day they leave.

Any vendor that stores or handles your health data is a business associate. Under HHS rules, the agency must sign a written business associate agreement (BAA) with that vendor before it can see any client data. Get a signed BAA from your software vendor, your texting tool and any AI tool that sees client records.

Which home care software do agencies use?

These products cover different sizes of agency. Prices come from each vendor's own website as of October 2026.

AxisCare

AxisCare prices by quote, based on agency size and number of clients. Its tiers start at 25 clients and go up to more than 1,000. The base price includes EVV, scheduling, billing, custom forms, client and family portals, a mobile app and medication reminders. Support and updates are included too.

AlayaCare

AlayaCare serves mid-size and large agencies, including those working across several states. It covers intake, EVV, scheduling, billing, care plans and a caregiver app. It also has AI tools, such as a form assistant that turns spoken notes into form fields. AlayaCare says it supports HIPAA and has regular SOC 2 Type II audits, which are outside checks of its security. Prices are by quote.

Careswitch

Careswitch offers its core agency system for free. That includes scheduling, care notes, billing, care plans, caregiver apps, visit verification and timesheets. Full-service payroll costs $49 a month plus $6 for each 40 hours worked. Premium chat costs $1 per active employee a month. There is no setup fee.

How do they compare?

Product	Price (Oct 2026)	EVV	Good fit for
AxisCare	Quote, by number of clients	Included	Small to large private-pay and Medicaid agencies
AlayaCare	Quote	Included	Mid-size and large agencies in several states
Careswitch	Core system free, payroll from $49 a month	Visit verification included	New and small agencies watching costs

What should an agency ask in a demo?

• Your state's EVV setup: Confirm the software works with your state's EVV system or meets its rules.
• Payers you bill: List every payer, such as Medicaid, the VA, long-term care insurance and private pay. Make sure the software bills each one the way they require.
• Caregiver app: Have two or three caregivers try the app during a demo. It must work with poor phone signal and be easy to clock in on.
• Scheduling tools: Test how fast you can fill a call-off on a busy morning.
• BAA and security: Get the BAA in writing and ask about phone security, logins and backups.
• Data export: Make sure you can download all client, visit and billing records if you ever leave.

How can AI help a home care agency?

AI is most useful on the jobs that eat office time.

• Call-off coverage: When a caregiver calls in sick, AI can find caregivers who are nearby, qualified and under their overtime limit. It then texts them the open visit and books the first one who accepts.
• Visit notes from voice: Caregivers speak a short summary after a visit, and AI turns it into a structured note for review. AlayaCare lists a tool like this.
• After-hours calls: An AI receptionist can answer family and caregiver calls at night, log messages and pass urgent ones to the on-call manager. My guide to medical answering services covers the options.

Keep a person in charge of care decisions. AI can draft a note or suggest a caregiver, but your staff must check both.

When does custom home care software make sense?

Most agencies should buy a home care product. EVV and payer billing are complex, and the vendors above keep up with state changes.

A custom tool makes sense around your main system in these cases.

• You run more than one service line: You offer home care plus staffing, adult day care or transport, and no product covers all of them well.
• Office staff copy data all day: Scheduling, payroll, hiring and billing sit in separate systems, and nobody has one clear view.
• You want your own client or family app: You want a client portal in your brand, with visit updates, invoices and messages.
• You need reports across systems: Owners want one view of hours, margin and caregiver turnover across every branch.

Before any build, ask your vendor what data other tools can read and write. That decides what you can add.

What mistakes do home care agencies make when they buy this?

A few mistakes carry real compliance risk in this category specifically, more than almost any other on this site.

• Assuming EVV compliance is automatic. Each state runs its EVV program differently, and some mandate a specific state-run system rather than letting you choose your own vendor. Confirm your specific state's EVV rules before you sign, not after, since EVV was further expanded to additional Medicaid services in July 2026 and keeps evolving.
• No signed BAA before any client data moves. Any vendor that can see protected health information, including a texting tool or an AI note-taking feature, is a business associate under HIPAA and needs a signed agreement first. This includes add-on AI features bolted onto an otherwise-compliant core system, check each one separately.
• Treating AI visit notes as final without caregiver or office review. An AI-drafted note from a voice summary is a starting point, not a clinical or billing record, until a person checks it. Skipping that review step risks both care-quality and billing accuracy problems.
• Not confirming payer-specific billing before go-live. Medicaid, the VA, long-term care insurance and private pay all have different billing rules. Confirm your software handles every payer you actually bill, not just the most common one, before you switch systems.

How can Blur Studio help a home care agency?

I like to start with one full day in your office, from the first call-off to the last invoice. If AxisCare, AlayaCare or Careswitch covers what you need, I will recommend it. Where they fall short, I build the extra tool, link it to your home care system and sign a BAA before any client data moves. Your agency owns the code and the accounts. I stay on to maintain the tool after it goes live.