Switching Your FMS Mid-Year: What Actually Happens

You can change your Financial Management Service (FMS). The Self-Determination Program (SDP) is voluntary, the FMS is a vendor you choose, and nothing in the program locks you to one company for the year. What a switch actually involves is a set of handoffs: your budget, your caregivers, your vendors, and the insurance behind your caregivers. Here is how each one moves.

First, tell your regional center

The switch starts with your service coordinator, not with the new FMS. The regional center vendors the FMS and issues the authorizations that let an FMS pay anyone, so the new company cannot act until the regional center has moved those authorizations to it. Your service coordinator will tell you the regional center's own steps and forms.

What moves, and how

Your individual budget and spending plan. The budget is yours, not the FMS's. It is set by your IPP team and attached to your Individual Program Plan (IPP). It does not change because you change FMS. Your spending plan, and the authorizations that back it, are reissued to the new FMS by the regional center. The money already spent this year stays spent; the new FMS picks up the remaining balance.

Your caregivers. Under the Co-Employer model, the FMS is the employer for payroll and tax purposes. So a change of FMS is, on paper, a change of employer. Each caregiver completes new-hire paperwork with the new FMS: onboarding documents, wage notices, tax withholding forms and payroll setup. Wage rates and schedules do not have to change; the paperwork does. Your caregivers should expect two W-2s for the year, one from each FMS. Whether a background clearance carries over or must be repeated depends on the regional center and the new FMS.

Your vendors. Vendors are set up per FMS. Each one submits a W-9 and a vendor agreement with banking details to the new FMS before it can be paid. Give your vendors notice so their first invoice after the switch goes to the right place. See paying vendors under SDP.

Workers' compensation. Under Co-Employer, the FMS carries workers' compensation for your caregivers. That coverage ends with the old FMS and begins with the new one on the transfer date. Under Sole Employer, if you carry your own policy, it stays with you. See our workers' compensation page.

The timing rule

Treat a switch like a new enrollment. We need the signed and approved spending plan by the 10th of the month before the intended transfer date, and regional center authorizations should be in place the week before. Onboarding usually takes two to three weeks once documents and authorizations are in. A mid-month transfer is possible but harder, because payroll periods and vendor billing cycles do not line up with it.

The cleanest transfer date is the first day of a month that is also the start of a pay period. The old FMS runs its final payroll for hours through the day before; the new FMS runs its first payroll for hours from the transfer date. Timesheets must not straddle the two.

What to ask your outgoing FMS for

Before the switch, ask the old FMS for:

• A year-to-date budget report by budget category: allocated, spent and remaining. The monthly expenditure report every FMS must provide is the starting point.
• Year-to-date payroll for each caregiver: gross wages, hours, and any paid sick leave used and accrued.
• A vendor list with what each has been paid this year.
• Copies of caregiver onboarding documents, if the FMS will release them.
• Confirmation of the last payroll date and the last invoices paid.

The new FMS needs these to make sure the remaining balance is right, and you need them to catch anything paid twice or missed.

What can go wrong

• A caregiver works the first week after the transfer before the new-hire paperwork is done. That caregiver cannot be paid until it is.
• A vendor sends an invoice to the old FMS after the transfer date. It sits.
• The spending plan changed during the year and the copy the new FMS receives is the old one. Check the version.
• Authorizations move late, and the first payroll slips. Keep the 10th-of-the-month rule.

How Sentinel Four handles this

When a family transfers to us, the first 30 days follow our regular five-step process, compressed where the paperwork allows.

1. Initial consultation. Your dedicated case manager reviews the spending plan, regional center authorizations and the transfer date, and asks for the year-to-date reports from your prior FMS.
2. Onboarding. Caregiver onboarding documents, vendor W-9s and agreements, and enrollment documents signed through DocuSign. You get portal access at this step.
3. Implementation. Your spending plan is mapped to service codes, your remaining balance is mapped in the portal, and payroll and vendor systems are set up.
4. Go-live. Caregivers clock in and out on the AxisCare app from day one. Invoices and purchase requests go to your case manager.
5. Ongoing. Weekly payroll with paydays every Monday, and monthly budget reports.

Your case manager is the one name you call through the transfer, and the portal shows your budget and payment records as soon as the balance is loaded. See your first 30 days with Sentinel Four and how caregiver payroll works.