FORT LAUDERDALE, FL / ACCESS Newswire / October 20, 2026 / Corvara HR, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, company that works with home health, hospice and behavioral health agencies, has published a personnel file audit checklist for Medicare-certified home health agencies and hospices surveyed by ACHC, CHAP or The Joint Commission. The guide turns the personnel requirements in the Medicare Conditions of Participation into a 71-item, file-by-file audit, cites every item to the regulation it comes from, and includes a printable checklist. It is available at no cost, with no sign-up, at https://corvarahr.com/guides/home-health-hospice-personnel-file-audit-checklist

When an accreditor surveys an agency for Medicare deemed status, the federal Conditions of Participation are the floor, and each accreditor adds standards of its own. Those standards sit in manuals that are gated or sold, and a checklist that does not say where each item comes from is hard to act on. The new guide separates what federal law requires from what each accreditor publishes openly and from what is only a recommendation.

Among the points it documents:

Emergency preparedness training is required when staff join and then at least every two years, not every year, for both home health agencies and hospices (42 CFR 484.102(d); 42 CFR 418.113(d)).
The federal home health rules contain no criminal background check requirement; that duty comes from state law. Hospices must obtain a check on every employee with direct patient contact or access to patient records, and the hospice rules define "employee" to include volunteers (42 CFR 418.114(d); 42 CFR 418.3).

Home health and hospice aides need at least 12 hours of in-service training in each 12-month period, and each aide must be observed providing care on site at least once a year (42 CFR 484.80; 42 CFR 418.76).
From June 16, 2027, CMS will require accreditors to include Medicare's own regulatory language as their minimum accreditation standards (91 FR 36370).

"An agency can do everything right and still pick up a finding over a training record no one can find, or a renewal date no one had on a calendar," said Matthew Dore, founder of Corvara HR. "We built this checklist from the regulation text itself, so an administrator can see which rule each item comes from and run the audit before a surveyor does."

The guide covers what every personnel file needs, including Form I-9, exclusion screening, emergency preparedness and infection control training, and OSHA bloodborne pathogens records; the federal qualifications for licensed and professional staff; home health and hospice aide training, competency and supervision; hospice orientation, volunteers and background checks; contract staff; and record retention. It summarizes what ACHC, CHAP and The Joint Commission publish openly about personnel files, gives a standard number only where a public document prints it, and lists every source it used.

The checklist joins Corvara HR's other compliance guides, which cover Florida home health personnel files and aide training, Florida Level 2 background rescreening, North Carolina home care personnel records, New Jersey substance use disorder treatment staffing, and OIG exclusion screening. Each guide is built from the current rule text and shows the date it was last reviewed.

About Corvara HR

Corvara HR is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, company that works with home health, hospice and behavioral health agencies on HR compliance. Website: https://corvarahr.com

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SOURCE: Corvara HR