A federal law has mandated that all states implement Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) for Medicaid-funded personal care services programs like IHSS starting January 1, 2019—or else lose significant funding. Providers and clients have been very worried about what EVV will be like: Will it endanger our privacy? Will it create lots of extra work in our already busy days? UDW caregivers have been active in opposing a burdensome EVV system, and have been sharing our fears and concerns about EVV to the California Department of Social Services (DSS). And it appears our hard work is paying off. The state announced […]
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By Astrid Zuniga, caregiver and UDW Vice President As an active member and elected leader of my union, I wear a lot of hats. But first and foremost, I am a mother. And for the past two years, I have been devoted to protecting the safety of my family—and the safety of all our loved ones with disabilities. I’ve written about my son Manuel before. He lives with autism and intellectual disabilities that make him prone to wandering and aggressive behavior. I worry every day that his fearlessness will get him into trouble, especially if he comes into contact with […]
Read more →Timesheet violations are a hassle and they can be scary—no one wants to be suspended or fired as a provider because they wrote down the wrong number on their timesheet. Because February was a short month, a lot of us got violations. But the good news is that having a union like UDW on your side can make a big difference when it comes to timesheet violations. UDW went to bat for IHSS providers with the state, arguing that it wasn’t fair for so many hardworking caregivers to get violations. Thanks to pressure from the union, the state agreed to […]
Read more →Franziska Monahan, heard on All Things Considered, March 18 2018 Celina Raddatz quit her job at a nursing home in 2014 when she realized she would have to take care of her mother full-time. Raddatz’s mother, Guadalupe Pena Villegas, 83, suffers from Alzheimer’s and bipolar disorder, a combination that sometimes makes her a danger to herself and others, and thus requires her to be supervised 24 hours a day. Raddatz and one of her sisters, Rosalia Lizarraga, 61, had been caring for their mother together. But as the Alzheimer’s progressed, the task became too stressful for Lizarraga. The full responsibility fell […]
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