By Shannin Prather
July 2021 | 2021 Summer Newsletter
The In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) care recipient (consumer) is the primary employer of their Independent Care Provider (IP). This role has many important responsibilities. Being a successful employer begins with creating an environment of effective communication and mutual respect.
One of the many pieces to building this kind of environment is approving care provider’s timesheets quickly so they can receive timely pay. If you know the approval may be delayed, let your care providers know why you must delay and when you will be able to approve their timesheet.
As an employer, it is the consumer’s responsibility to approve the timesheet in a respectfully quick timeframe after it has been submitted by the provider. When a consumer delays signing a timesheet, the paycheck for the provider will also be delayed. This causes stress for an IP and can cause feelings of frustration. Delays in approving timesheets can also negatively affect the benefits that the IP receives.
As a consumer, keep in mind that your IP—just like all of us—has bills to pay, and possibly a family to support. A delay in approving timesheets may have a negative ripple effect, resulting in late payments for rent, utilities, and other bills. Late payments can cause stress and anxiety, not to mention late fees, which may create hard feelings between the employer and the employee.
To ease the process of reviewing and approving IP timesheets, consider keeping a log to track the time your provider begins and ends work each day, totaling the number of hours worked after the IP has finished for the day. This will allow you to quickly verify the timesheets submitted by your provider(s).
If a consumer is unexpectedly not able to approve a timesheet due to death or change in medical condition, the provider can submit the timesheet as usual and request IHSS payroll staff review it and submit it to a payroll supervisor by calling IHSS at (408) 792-1600.