If you're building a Medicaid home care agency in Georgia, there are four things you need to know before anything else. First: your CCSP provider application is only accepted in March and September — miss a window and you wait six months. Second: your DCH license needs to be at least nine months old before you can even attend the required Provider Consult. Third: Georgia's EVV is Netsmart MobileCaregiver+, not HHAeXchange. And fourth: the referral relationship that matters most in your county isn't with the state — it's with your local Area Agency on Aging. Everything flows from there.
Georgia's CCSP provider application process is one of the most time-gated in the country. Applications are accepted by DCH twice a year — March and September. Miss a window and the next one is six months away. And before you can even submit an application, you need to have attended a required Provider Consult with the Area Agency on Aging serving your counties.
Before you can attend the Provider Consult, your agency needs a current DCH license for the service types you plan to provide — with at least nine months of active licensure as of the month of application for Personal Support Services and Skilled Nursing. That means your license needs to be in hand, and operating, roughly nine months before you plan to submit.
The Provider Consult is not an information session — it is a formal pre-application meeting with the AAA. The AAA will assess your agency's capacity, geographic reach, and service capabilities relative to the county's needs. The consult is a prerequisite: you cannot submit a CCSP application without having completed it. Contact the AAA for your counties to schedule. For Metro Atlanta counties (Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Rockdale), the Area Agency on Aging is the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) — contact Yaritza Rivera at 470-826-1170. For other counties, find your AAA at aging.georgia.gov.
CCSP is Georgia's primary Medicaid waiver for elderly and functionally impaired adults who qualify for nursing facility level of care but choose to remain home. Income limit: approximately $2,901/month (2025) — the 300% FBR threshold for long-term care Medicaid. Asset limit: $2,000 for single applicants.
Services include personal support (bathing, dressing, light housekeeping, meal prep, respite), adult day care, emergency response systems, home-delivered meals, and alternative living services. For most agencies, personal support services are the core service type.
Referrals flow through the Area Agency on Aging. The AAA conducts the assessment, develops the service plan, and issues service authorizations. No authorization from the AAA means no billable service. Build your AAA relationships first — they are your referral source, your care plan authority, and your authorization pathway.
Important caregiver restriction: CCSP explicitly prohibits spouses from being hired as paid caregivers. Other relatives may only provide CCSP personal care in rural areas where no other qualified provider is available. This distinguishes Georgia from many states that allow broad family caregiver hiring under Medicaid. CCSP expects agency-directed care with agency-employed caregivers.
SOURCE also operates under the EDWP and provides the same services as CCSP, but serves a more medically complex population. SOURCE requires SSI Medicaid eligibility — income under approximately $967/month (2025). The financial threshold is substantially more restrictive than CCSP.
The defining SOURCE feature is enhanced care coordination: every participant has a dedicated Primary Care Physician who works with the case manager to coordinate all medical and community-based services. SOURCE clients typically have higher acuity and more frequent care plan changes than CCSP clients. The documentation burden is higher, and the case management relationship is more intensive.
For agencies, SOURCE clients require more administrative engagement — PCP coordination, more frequent authorization reviews, and tighter documentation standards. The reimbursement reflects this complexity.
GAPP provides in-home skilled nursing and personal care for medically fragile children under age 21 with multiple system diagnoses who require continuous skilled nursing care. It is a separate waiver from the EDWP — different application process, different provider requirements, and different AAA/referral structure.
Licensed nursing agencies can apply to become GAPP providers through GAMMIS or by calling 404-657-7882. GAPP nursing agencies are listed in Appendix U of the GAPP provider manual on the GAMMIS website. Members age out of GAPP at 21 — agencies serving GAPP clients should plan for transition to adult programs before that deadline.
Georgia's managed care program, Georgia Families, is administered through three Care Management Organizations. Most Medicaid members (not CCSP/SOURCE waiver participants) receive their Medicaid benefits through a CMO. For home care agencies, this affects billing for any services provided to CMO-enrolled members outside of the CCSP/SOURCE waiver structure.
CCSP and SOURCE waiver services are primarily billed through GAMMIS for FFS, but CMO credentialing may be required for agencies serving Georgia Families members in other service lines. Verify billing pathway by member enrollment status before submitting claims.
GAMMIS (Georgia Medicaid Management Information System) is both the provider enrollment portal and the claims submission system. It is where you register to create your account, complete and submit the Medicaid provider enrollment application, submit CCSP provider applications once approved for the application window, submit and track claims for FFS Medical Assistance members, and verify member eligibility. Think of GAMMIS as the operational spine of Georgia Medicaid for providers. If something is going wrong with enrollment or billing, GAMMIS is where you investigate it first.
GAMMIS uses your Georgia Medicaid ID number and NPI for claims processing — not a plan-specific ID. CMOs also use your GAMMIS Medicaid ID and NPI. This means one consistent identifier across most of your Georgia Medicaid billing, which simplifies reconciliation compared to states where each CMO assigns a different plan ID.
Georgia uses Netsmart MobileCaregiver+ as its statewide EVV solution — not HHAeXchange and not Sandata. Netsmart was formerly branded as Tellus (you may see references to "4Tellus" in older documentation). The rebranding happened in 2022 but the system is the same. CMS certified Georgia's Netsmart EVV solution in March 2022.
Claims for EVV-covered services must be submitted through the Netsmart system, not directly to GAMMIS. The EVV record in Netsmart creates and routes the claim. Agencies may use a third-party EVV vendor as an alternative, but that vendor must have completed full integration with Netsmart — integrated third-party vendors had a deadline of June 30, 2022, to complete integration. If you are considering a third-party EVV vendor, verify it is on Georgia's approved list with an active Netsmart integration before committing.
| Payer / Member Type | Where Claims Go | EVV Platform | Authorization Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCSP / SOURCE (FFS Medical Assistance) | GAMMIS | Netsmart MobileCaregiver+ | Area Agency on Aging case manager |
| Georgia Families CMO members | Member's CMO directly (Amerigroup, CareSource, or Peach State) | Netsmart MobileCaregiver+ | CMO prior authorization |
| GAPP (medically fragile children) | GAMMIS | Netsmart MobileCaregiver+ | GAPP program — contact 404-657-7882 |
Anthem subsidiary. Provider network contact: 1-800-249-0442. Most active in South and Middle Georgia regions. Part of the Georgia Families managed care program alongside CareSource and Peach State.
Nonprofit managed care plan. Strong presence in Metro Atlanta. Provider services: 1-855-202-1058. Claims: caresource.com/providers/Georgia.
Centene subsidiary (same parent as PA Health & Wellness). Provider services: 1-800-704-1484. Claims: pshpgeorgia.com. Georgia-based Medicaid MCO operating under the Georgia Families contract.
Not yet. To apply for CCSP as a personal support services provider, your DCH license must be active for at least nine months as of the month of application. If you received your license this month, the earliest you can apply is nine months from now — and only during a March or September application window. The sequence is: get licensed, wait nine months, attend the required Provider Consult with your regional AAA (typically held in February or August), then submit your CCSP application in March or September. The timeline is real. Build it into your startup plan before committing operational resources to CCSP service delivery.
Your primary referral source is the Area Agency on Aging serving your counties. The AAA conducts client assessments, develops service plans, and issues service authorizations. Clients don't come to you directly — they go through the AAA, which then connects them with contracted providers in their area. This means your most important relationship isn't with DCH or GAMMIS — it's with your regional AAA case managers. Introductions, demonstrated capacity, reliable service delivery, and responsive communication with AAA case managers are what build a consistent CCSP referral pipeline. Apply through the Georgia Aging and Disability Resource Connections (ADRC) to find the 12 ADRC offices and their county assignments.
CCSP has a higher income limit (~$2,901/month in 2025) and a larger eligible population — it's Georgia's mainstream home care waiver for adults who need nursing facility level of care. SOURCE requires SSI Medicaid eligibility (~$967/month) — a much smaller, more medically complex population with a dedicated PCP involved in every care plan. Most new agencies apply for CCSP first, building volume and operational capacity, and add SOURCE later as their documentation and care coordination capabilities mature. Both use the same application window (March/September) and the same AAA referral structure. CCSP clients are more numerous; SOURCE clients require more intensive management.
It means your EVV setup process, worker training, and billing workflows are all through Netsmart MobileCaregiver+ — not HHAeXchange. If your scheduling or billing software was configured for HHAeXchange integration in other states, it won't automatically work for Georgia. Register through GAMMIS, complete Netsmart registration at mobilecaregiverplus.com after your GAMMIS account is set up, and ensure workers download the Netsmart app and complete training before their first shifts. EVV-covered claims are submitted through Netsmart — claims submitted directly to GAMMIS without a Netsmart EVV record will fail unless a specific billing exception applies.
Georgia agencies managing CCSP AAA authorization tracking, Netsmart EVV compliance, GAMMIS billing for FFS members alongside CMO billing for Georgia Families members, and SOURCE care coordination documentation are running multiple simultaneous administrative tracks from the first day of operation. CareBravo delivers scheduling, Netsmart-integrated EVV compliance, billing across both GAMMIS and the three CMO pathways, and authorization tracking tied to AAA service plans — as completed operational work. So your time goes to building the AAA relationships that drive referrals, not reconciling what's sitting in GAMMIS against what's pending in Netsmart.
The agencies that grow in Georgia aren't the ones that moved fastest — they're the ones that understood the sequence before they started. License first. Build the AAA relationship before the application. Submit in March or September with a complete file. Then deliver reliably enough that your AAA case managers think of your agency first. The CareDrain Diagnostic shows what operational gaps are costing you now — so you can enter that referral relationship with clean operations behind you.