Padres como cuidadores remunerados

Parents as Paid Caregivers (PPCG) is an Arizona Medicaid service model that pays a parent or legal guardian to deliver approved in-home care to their own child with an intellectual or developmental disability. It runs through the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) and the Arizona Long Term Care System (ALTCS).

Here’s the short version. If your child is DDD eligible, enrolled in ALTCS, and authorized for attendant care o habilitation, you can be hired and trained by a DDD Qualified Vendor (like Endeavor) to provide that care yourself and be paid for it. Your child’s eligibility has to come first, and no agency can speed that part up. Endeavor DDD Services is a Qualified Vendor, and we train parents for the role at our own offices.

We serve the East and West Valley as well as Yavapai County. Ready to talk it through? Call the East Valley at 480-933-6069; West Valley at 602-610-6877 and Yavapai County at 928-543-9023.

What Arizona’s Parents as Paid Caregivers Program Is

The Parents as Paid Caregivers program lets a parent be employed as their child’s paid caregiver instead of waiting for an outside caregiver to be assigned. The care itself is the same care DDD already authorizes. The difference is who delivers it and who gets paid for it.

The program began in 2020 as a temporary measure during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In 2024, it was approved as a permanent part of Arizona’s Medicaid program, so families can plan around it with confidence.

Who Qualifies for the Parents as Paid Caregivers Program

Qualifying for the program comes down to two things: your child’s eligibility and your eligibility as the parent.

Your Child’s Eligibility

To qualify, your child will need to be found eligible by DDD, enrolled in the Arizona Long Term Care System, and authorized for attendant care, habilitation, or both through a service plan. DDD eligibility covers six qualifying conditions: autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, epilepsy, intellectual disability, and the at-risk category for very young children who may qualify later. These eligibility decisions are made by the state. If you’re not sure where your child is in that process, give us a call and we’ll help you figure out the next step.

Your Eligibility as the Parent

As the parent, you’ll need to:

• Have legal or physical custody of your child
• Live in the same household as your child
• Be at least 18 years old with valid government identification
• Have lived in Arizona for at least six months[1]
• Pass a criminal background check
• Clear the Department of Child Safety Central Registry and the Adult Protective Services Registry
• Obtain a Level One Fingerprint Clearance Card (required in most cases)

Legal guardians and court-appointed custodians count as parents under DDD’s rules, so a grandparent raising a grandchild with legal guardianship can use this program. A grandparent without guardianship can still often be paid as a family member caregiver, just outside of PPCG. Both parents in a household can be paid, but their hours draw from the same weekly limit for that child.

Services a Parent Can and Cannot Be Paid to Provide

A parent can be paid for two services: attendant care y habilitation. A parent cannot be paid for respite. That rule is set by DDD policy,[2] and no agency can work around it.

Attendant care is hands-on help with daily activities: bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, eating, moving safely around the house. Habilitation is the teaching side. It’s the work of building and holding onto everyday skills, whether that’s learning to manage a morning routine independently, communicate a need, or handle a transition without escalating. Habilitation is the most confusing word in this whole system, and most families have never heard it before a Support Coordinator says it. If your child is working on a skill rather than being assisted with a task, that’s habilitation.

Respite is excluded for parents for a reason that makes sense once you see it. Respite exists to give the primary caregiver a break, so paying that same caregiver to provide it would defeat the purpose.

Here’s what almost no one tells families: your child doesn’t lose respite. Your child stays eligible for it, and the hours stay in the plan. They just have to be delivered by someone other than you – an eligible sibling, relative, neighbor, etc. or you can have an agency look for a respite provider. This Direct Support Professional comes in, you get actual time off, and those hours still get used. Respite sits alongside your child’s attendant care and habilitation hours, not in place of them.

Extraordinary Care and Why It Decides Your Child’s Hours

Arizona pays for extraordinary care, and understanding that one phrase explains most of what happens in your child’s assessment. DDD defines extraordinary care as care that “exceeds the range of activities that a spouse or a legally responsible Parent of a minor child would ordinarily perform in the household on behalf of the ALTCS Member if the Member did not have a disability or chronic illness, and which is necessary to assure the health and welfare of the Member.”

In plain terms, the state pays for care related to the disability, not for everyday parenting. Examples might include the following. Packing a lunch for an 8-year-old may not be billable, since most parents of 8-year-olds do that. Physically feeding a 12-year-old who can’t hold a utensil may be billable, since most parents of 12-year-olds don’t. Reminding a teenager to shower may not be billable, while providing full physical assistance in the shower because of a mobility impairment may be. The assessment is looking for the gap between what your child needs and what a child the same age without a disability would need.

That’s why documentation decides your outcome. Describing your day accurately, task by task, is the difference between hours that reflect reality and hours that don’t. Some hours can’t be billed at all: time your child is in K-12 educational services, inpatient hospital care, an emergency room, or a licensed outpatient facility, and any attendant care time when your child isn’t present. Paid parent services also run between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. unless an overnight need is specifically documented in the assessment.

How Many Hours a Parent Can Be Paid For

A parent can be paid for up to 40 hours in any seven-day period, and no more than 16 hours within any 24-hour period, counting attendant care and habilitation together. Those limits are set by Arizona law and DDD policy.[3]

Read that limit carefully, because it’s widely misunderstood. The 40-hour cap applies to the parent, not to the child. A child can be assessed for more than 40 hours of medically necessary care.

If your child is authorized for 55 hours, your child hasn’t lost 15 hours. Your child has 15 remaining hours that someone else has to deliver. This is the most common way authorized hours quietly go unused, and it’s a fair question to ask any agency before you sign on: if my child is approved for more than I can bill, who covers the rest, and how fast?

Training and Background Checks Parents Must Complete

Before your first paid shift, you complete state-required training and clear your background checks. This part surprises parents, because it feels strange to be trained to care for your own child. The training isn’t a judgment on your parenting. It’s what the state requires of anyone billing Medicaid for direct care, and it’s the same training every Direct Support Professional completes.

The list starts with Artículo 9, Arizona’s rule on managing behavior safely, best understood as training in how to keep your child safe during a crisis. CPR and first aid comes next, and it includes an in-person hands-on skills demonstration, so an online-only certificate won’t clear. Then Direct Care Worker training, separate habilitation training if habilitation is in your child’s plan, and orientation specific to your child.

Next comes a level 1 Fingerprint Clearance Card.

Endeavor helps you get all of these trainings, so you can check that worry off your list.

How Payment and Taxes Work for Paid Parent Caregivers

A paid parent caregiver is employed by a DDD Qualified Vendor and paid by that agency, not directly by the state. Depending on the employment type (some agencies are W-2 and some 1099), the agency handles payroll, taxes, supervision, and electronic visit verification. You clock in and out for each shift, which is a requirement rather than a matter of trust.

Taxes are where families most often get bad information. Under IRS Notice 2014-7, certain Medicaid waiver payments made to a care provider who lives in the same home as the person receiving care are treated as difficulty of care payments and may be excluded from gross income. Whether that applies to you depends on your situation, and the interaction with credits like the Earned Income Credit is genuinely complicated. Read the IRS guidance and talk to a tax professional before you file.

Steps to Become a Paid Parent Caregiver in Arizona

The path runs from DDD eligibility, to an approved service plan, to onboarding with a Qualified Vendor. Here’s the whole sequence:

1. Confirm DDD eligibility and ALTCS enrollment. If your child isn’t in the system yet, this is the first and longest step, and it’s handled entirely by the state.
2. Raise Parents as Paid Caregivers with your Support Coordinator. Bring it up at your planning meeting and say plainly that you want to be your child’s paid caregiver.
3. Complete the assessment and service plan. Your child’s needs are assessed, and the plan documents the authorized services, the hours, and your choice to serve as the paid caregiver.
4. Choose a Qualified Vendor (Like Endeavor) You pick the agency that will employ you. You can change this choice later.
5. Complete clearances and training. Application, background and registry checks, fingerprint card where required, Article 9, CPR and first aid, and any service-specific training.
6. Set up visit verification and start. Your shifts get scheduled, your visit verification is configured, and you begin providing your child’s approved hours.

Realistically, the first week is paperwork and clearances, and the second week is training and orientation. Two items push start dates out more than anything else: waiting on the fingerprint clearance card, and finding an in-person CPR skills session that fits your schedule. Once your child’s eligibility and hours are already in place, this stage is measured in weeks. If eligibility is still pending, the state’s timeline governs timing.

Not sure which step you’re on? Call (480) 933-6069 and describe where you are. We’ll tell you what’s next, even if the answer is that you’re not ready for an agency yet.

Switching Agencies Without Losing Your Role as the Paid Caregiver

Changing Qualified Vendors does not cost you your role as your child’s paid caregiver, and it does not change your child’s authorized hours.

The confusion comes from not knowing who decides what. DDD owns eligibility, the assessment, the service plan, and the number of authorized hours. Your agency owns hiring, training, clearances, scheduling, payroll, and support. Your child’s approved hours travel with your child, because they belong to your child’s plan, not to any company.

There’s one mechanical detail to plan around. A parent can work through only one agency for paid caregiving at a time, so a switch is sequential rather than overlapping: the new agency completes your onboarding, then the authorization transfers. Endeavor supports switching as a normal path rather than an awkward one, and we’ll walk you through the order of operations before you give notice anywhere. If you’re weighing us against your current agency, why families choose Endeavor lays out what we do differently.

Getting Started With Endeavor DDD Services

Endeavor DDD Services is a DDD Qualified Vendor, and the programs described on this page are funded through a contract with the Arizona Department of Economic Security. We’re an Arizona family-owned company, and our story is built around the belief that extraordinary care happens when the member is put at the center of all we do.

We serve three regions from three offices. The East Valley office in Mesa covers the East Valley: (480) 933-6069. The West Valley office covers Phoenix and the surrounding area: (602) 610-6877. The Prescott and Yavapai County office covers Chino Valley, Dewey, Prescott, and Prescott Valley: (928) 830-0136. All three are open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Our full site is also available in Spanish.

Call the office nearest you and tell us where your child is in the process. If you’re already authorized, we’ll start onboarding.