What is the MDHHS Home Help Program?

What the program actually is

Home Help is a Michigan Medicaid personal-care program for people who need hands-on assistance with covered daily tasks. MDHHS assesses the person and authorizes services. The client can choose an eligible individual caregiver or an agency provider. Read the official program description.

Who administers it

Home Help is run by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), specifically the Adult Services division, working through local county MDHHS offices. Applications, home assessments, and hour approvals all flow through your local office; payment processing and provider enrollment happen through the state's CHAMPS system.

CarePay Michigan is an independent resource — we're not MDHHS, and we don't process applications on the state's behalf. What we do is walk you through the real process in plain language and, if it's useful, connect you with an agency referral option in your county.

What the program covers

Home Help splits into two categories of support:

• Activities of Daily Living (ADLs): bathing, dressing, grooming, mobility within the home, transferring (like bed to wheelchair), and toileting.
• Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs): light housekeeping, laundry, meal preparation, and grocery shopping for essentials.

An MDHHS Adult Services Worker documents exactly which of these your loved one needs help with during the home assessment, and that documentation is what determines approved monthly hours.

The self-direction option

This is the part almost nobody explains clearly. Home Help includes a consumer-direction (self-direction) component — the Medicaid recipient, or their authorized representative, can choose their own caregiver rather than being assigned one. That chosen caregiver can be an adult child, sibling, grandchild, or friend, and the state pays that person directly for the approved hours.

Spouses and parents of minor children generally cannot be paid caregivers under this specific program. We cover exactly who can and can't be paid, and why, on our self-direction guide.

Fiscal intermediary vs. provider agency

In the individual-caregiver route, the client employs the caregiver directly. An agency employs its own workers. Ask who is the employer, who submits service records, and who issues pay. Do not assume an intermediary or payroll arrangement applies to the case just because it operates in another state.

Agency employee wages require a written offer. Understand the difference between reimbursement and wages.

How this differs from the MI Choice Waiver

Home Help and MI Choice have different eligibility, service, and authorization rules. Ask the responsible program which route applies to the person and whether services can be coordinated. Do not transfer spouse-caregiver or other rules from one program to another.

If the person is enrolled in MI Coordinated Health, use our MICH personal-care authorization guide to identify the correct decision-maker.

The EVV requirement

EVV is required unless an exemption applies. Individual caregivers must also continue ESV or PSV service verification. See MDHHS instructions and the live-in exemption guide.

What to do next

If this sounds like it could apply to your family, the practical next step is usually one of three things: check whether your loved one meets the eligibility criteria, understand what the pay actually looks like month to month, or walk through the step-by-step application process. If you'd rather just talk it through, the form below connects you with a Michigan care specialist directly.