Personal Care Attendant

The Personal Care Attendant (PCA) program provides support to eligible persons with disabilities, and the elderly. PCA services are for people who need help with day-to-day assistance in meeting their personal care needs. A Public Health Nurse conducts an assessment to determine program eligibility and needed services.

References for PCA Information

PCA services are available to persons covered by Medical Assistance. Anyone on Medical Assistance can request an assessment be completed. PHN has 30 days from request date to complete the assessment.

If a person is covered by Medical Assistance and is on a Prepaid Medical Plan (PMAP) such as Blue Plus, Medica, or UCare the County PHN will do the assessment if requested to do so by PMAP.

If someone is requesting assistance with homemaking, shopping, laundry and running errands PCA is not the appropriate service. They need to have an intake completed for waiver services.

Service Qualifications

In order to access PCA services, a person must need hands-on assistance with two of the following activities of daily living (ADL):

• Bathing
• Dressing
• Eating
• Grooming
• Mobility
• Positioning
• Toileting
• Transferring

Additional Qualifications

PCA services are available to persons enrolled in the following programs:

• Alternative Care (AC) program
• Community Alternative Care (CAC) waiver
• Community Alternatives for Disabled individuals (CADI) waiver
• Developmental Disability (DD) waiver
• Elderly waiver (EW)
• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) waiver

PCA Qualifications

A PCA may not be:

• A foster parent of a child
• Paid guardian
• Parent or stepparent of a minor child
• A recipient of PCA services, themselves
• A spouse of the recipient