When an agency rolls out an electronic visit verification (EVV) app, the first question caregivers ask — often quietly, sometimes anxiously — is: "Is this thing tracking me all day?" It's a fair question, and the honest answer for a well-designed system is no. Here's how GPS in EVV actually works, what it does and doesn't capture, and how agencies can introduce it without making good caregivers feel surveilled.
The purpose of GPS in EVV is narrow: to confirm that a visit happened where it was supposed to happen. To do that, a well-built system captures a location reading at exactly two moments:
That's it. Two snapshots, tied to the start and end of a scheduled visit. The app is not following the caregiver between visits, not logging where they eat lunch, and not recording a breadcrumb trail of their movements. In a properly designed system, when there's no active visit, there's no location capture at all.
This distinction — point-in-time verification versus continuous tracking — is the whole ballgame, and it's worth being explicit about it with caregivers, because the technology could do continuous tracking; good EVV deliberately doesn't.
A responsible EVV system does not:
If a caregiver closes the app during a visit, that's fine — the check-in is already recorded, and they'll reopen it to check out. The phone isn't being monitored in between.
Beyond being the right thing to do, getting caregiver consent before collecting location data is increasingly a legal requirement. A growing number of state privacy laws — such as the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act — treat precise geolocation as sensitive personal data that requires clear, affirmative consent before collection.
A well-built EVV system bakes this in: before a caregiver's location is ever captured, they review and agree to a plain-language explanation of what's collected (location at check-in and check-out), why (to verify visits), and what isn't (continuous tracking). Consent is recorded, and the caregiver knows exactly what they agreed to. That's not just compliance — it's the difference between a workforce that trusts the tool and one that resents it.
The rollout matters as much as the technology. Agencies that introduce EVV smoothly tend to do the same few things:
A good home care EVV app does not track caregivers all day — it takes two location readings per visit, at check-in and check-out, with the caregiver's informed consent, and nothing in between. Understood that way, GPS verification isn't surveillance; it's a shared record that protects clients, agencies, and caregivers alike. The agencies that explain it honestly find their caregivers don't just tolerate it — they appreciate having proof of the work they do.
Visiting Systems is built exactly this way: location captured only at check-in and check-out, with explicit caregiver consent recorded up front. This article is general information, not legal advice.