Adult Home Help Services (formerly Chore Services)
What are Adult Home Help Services?
Applying for Adult Home Help Services
Adult Home Help funding and service providers
Adult Home Help appeals
What are Adult Home Help Services?
Adult Home Help Services or AHHS, formerly known as Chore Services, provides money to people with disabilities, older adults and people who are blind, to hire someone to help them care for themselves. You must apply for AHHS through your local Family Independence Agency.
AHHS provides funds so you may pay someone to help you with those necessary daily activities you cannot perform without assistance. Some of those activities may include: bathing, dressing, taking medication, shopping and errands, housework, laundry, and meal preparation and clean up.
Adult Home Help Services does not include: public transportation, therapy, supervision, teaching, home repair such as electrical or plumbing repairs, or transportation for medical reasons.
The goal of Adult Home Help Services is to maintain persons in their own home and to keep persons from being placed in an alternative residential care facility such as an adult foster care home or nursing home. AHHS helps to strengthen your natural support system (for example, your parents or spouse) by providing assistance when necessary. Persons are eligible for Adult Home Help Services if you have Medicaid, require home help personal care, and live in an unlicensed setting.
Applying for Adult Home Help Services
You must apply for Adult Home Help Services (AHHS) through your local Family Independence Agency. Once you have contacted your local office requesting Adult Home Help services, an FIA worker will contact you to evaluate your income, resources, eligibility, and will conduct a client needs assessment. The needs assessment determines how much help you need completing the activities necessary for daily living. Those activities may include bathing, dressing, eating, and meal preparation, taking medication, housework, laundry, and shopping or errands.
After completing your needs assessment, your and your FIA worker develop your service plan which details how much assistance you need. Before you can begin to receive AHHS, you need to get a letter from a doctor stating that you need these services, and your service plan must be reviewed by a registered nurse from the Family Independence Agency.
Adult Home Help Funding and Service Providers
If you are eligible for Adult Home Help Services (AHHS), your will receive money to hire a service provider to assist you with your daily living needs. The amount of money received each month is determined by the Family Independence Agency worker after they have completed the needs assessment. Currently, the maximum amount a worker can approve is $333 a month. In very special cases, more than $333 can be approved. (The approved funding amount is calculated by the number of hours of care needed time the hourly rate). Any amount over $333 a month must be approved by a Family Independence Agency supervisor or by the main office in Lansing. This is called Expanded Home Help Services.
Payment will be made jointly to you and your service provider and will be mailed to you. Payment should be received during the first week of the month after services have been provided.
You can hire and fire your own service providers. Some of the people you might hire as your service provider could include: friends, parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors, or, you may choose to hire someone from an agency that can provide you with staffing assistance.
The only people that cannot be paid for this service are your spouse or your parents, if you are under that age of 18. Your service provider must complete a monthly listing of the services they provided.
The Family Independence Agency uses a chart to determine how long it should take to assist a person with a disability in the activities of daily living. Providers should carefully document how long it takes them to provide your personal assistance services. If you and/ or your provider believe the FIA assessment of your needs may not be accurate, please discuss the assessment with your FIA caseworker. You may also contact the FIA caseworker's supervisor. You have the right to an administrative hearing. A hearing with an administrative law judge will be scheduled, and you will be notified of the time and place. Please note that your request for an appeal must be made within 90 days after the agency mailed notice to you of the action you are appealing. For help in appealing an Adult Home Help Determination, contact your Support Coordinator, or contact the ACCESS unit at (248) 858-1510 or 1-800-810-3772.