Everything you need to know about IHSS, the county assessment process, and how IHSSHours.com helps you prepare.
IHSS stands for In-Home Supportive Services — a California Medi-Cal program that pays for home care services for eligible elderly, blind, and disabled individuals. The program allows recipients to live safely in their own homes rather than in a care facility.
IHSS pays a caregiver (who can be a family member, friend, or hired provider) to assist with daily activities like bathing, dressing, meal preparation, and more. The state and counties fund the program jointly.
To qualify for IHSS you must meet all of the following:
Minors with qualifying disabilities may also be eligible. There is no income limit beyond Medi-Cal eligibility requirements.
After you apply for IHSS, a county social worker will visit your home to conduct an in-person assessment. During this visit they will:
The total hours are then authorized and a provider is paid to deliver those hours each month.
The Functional Index Ranking is the scale California uses to measure how much assistance a recipient needs with each IHSS task, per California's Manual of Policies and Procedures (MPP §30-756.1). It runs from 1 to 5:
Each rank corresponds to a range of authorized hours per week based on California's official Hourly Task Guidelines (HTG).
IHSS covers a wide range of services across several categories:
Protective Supervision (PS) is an IHSS service that provides oversight for recipients who cannot be safely left alone due to a cognitive or mental health condition. It is a 24-hours-a-day protective component, meaning supervision coverage must be arranged throughout the day using a combination of IHSS hours and other resources (day programs, respite, family support). Paid IHSS PS hours are not authorized at 24 hours per day — actual hours are based on the recipient's unsupervised hours not already covered by other IHSS services.
To qualify, the recipient must have a documented diagnosis that causes them to be unable to recognize danger, call for help in an emergency, or safely manage their behavior when unsupervised.
Common qualifying conditions include:
For minors: PS is only authorized when the supervision need significantly exceeds what would be expected for a typical child of the same age without the disability.
There is no strict maximum for most IHSS services — hours are based on assessed need. However, certain categories have caps:
For ranked tasks like bathing, dressing, and bowel and bladder care, hours are determined by the Hourly Task Guidelines based on your functional index rank. Recipients with high-level needs can receive well over 100 hours per month in total.
Yes — in most cases, family members can serve as paid IHSS providers. This includes adult children, spouses, siblings, and other relatives. The provider must:
Exception: A spouse or parent of a minor child cannot be paid as an IHSS provider in most circumstances, though there are exceptions for certain situations. Contact your county IHSS office for specific rules.
To apply for IHSS, contact your county IHSS office directly. You can typically apply by:
Once your application is received, the county will schedule an in-home assessment with a social worker. This visit typically occurs within 30–45 days of your application.
We recommend completing your IHSSHours.com assessment before your county visit so you arrive fully informed about your expected hours.
Bringing the right documentation significantly strengthens your case. We recommend:
Having a family member or advocate present during the visit can also be helpful.
If you disagree with the hours the county authorizes, you have several options:
Your IHSSHours.com Clarity Report can serve as supporting documentation in a State Hearing, particularly if the preparer notes document specific incidents and needs in detail.
IHSS recipients are typically reassessed annually. However, reassessments can also be triggered by:
Hours can increase or decrease based on the reassessment. If your condition has worsened, requesting a reassessment proactively is often beneficial. IHSSHours.com can be used again before each reassessment to help you prepare.
The Hourly Task Guidelines (HTG) are official charts published by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) that specify the amount of time authorized for each IHSS task at each Functional Index Rank.
For example, Bowel and Bladder Care at Rank 4 is authorized at approximately 4.4 hours per week (mid estimate). The county social worker uses these charts — alongside their assessment of your functional abilities — to calculate your total monthly hours.
IHSSHours.com is built directly on the official HTG data, which is why our estimates closely reflect what you can expect from the county assessment process.
IHSSHours.com is an independent educational tool that generates a personalized IHSS preliminary assessment report — called the Clarity Report — based on your answers to a detailed questionnaire.
The report estimates your IHSS hours using California's official Hourly Task Guidelines and is designed to help you understand what to expect before your county social worker visit. It is not a government service and does not guarantee any specific outcome.
Our estimates are built directly on California's official Hourly Task Guidelines — the same data the county social worker uses. When your answers accurately reflect the recipient's functional abilities, the estimates are typically very close to what the county will authorize.
However, the final authorized hours depend entirely on the county social worker's in-person assessment. Factors that can affect the outcome include:
The more detail you provide in the questionnaire — especially in the preparer notes fields — the more accurately our report will reflect your situation.
No. IHSSHours.com is an independent educational resource. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any government agency, county IHSS office, or the California Department of Social Services (CDSS).
We use publicly available CDSS data and guidelines to build our assessment tool, but we are a private company providing an educational service. The Clarity Report is not an official government document.
Your Clarity Report is a multi-page professional PDF that includes:
Protective Supervision analysis is included for every recipient — an extensive cognitive and behavioral evaluation across 6 structured blocks, with age-specific questions for minors, adults, and elderly recipients. There's no separate add-on or extra charge.
Most preparers complete the full questionnaire — including the Protective Supervision section — in 35–60 minutes, since every Clarity Report includes the 6-block PS screening.
We recommend setting aside enough time to complete it in one sitting and having the recipient's medical records nearby for reference. The more detail you add to the preparer notes fields, the stronger your report will be.
Yes. While the report is designed primarily for initial applications, it can also be valuable for:
The preparer notes sections are especially useful for appeals, as they allow you to document specific incidents, dates, and examples that support a higher level of need.
Yes. We treat all health and personal information as sensitive data. Specifically:
For full details, please review our Privacy Policy. California residents have additional rights under CCPA/CPRA as described in that document.
We offer three one-time-payment products, all delivered as instant PDF downloads with no subscription or recurring fees:
All sales are final. Because we deliver a digital product (the Clarity Report PDF) upon completion of the assessment, we do not offer refunds once the report has been generated.
Exceptions may be considered in cases of duplicate charges or verified technical failures on our end. If you believe you were charged in error, contact us at support@ihsshours.com within 7 days of your purchase.
We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. Payment is processed securely and we never store your card information.
No account is required. You pay once, complete the questionnaire, and receive your report instantly — no login, no password, no subscription. Just provide your email address so we can send you a copy of your report.