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PHI Matching Services Project

The PHI Matching Services Project tracks the development of publicly-supported matching services registries across the country.



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Contact Us

Please send us your comments and suggestions on this project. We particularly welcome any new information on matching service registries in your state. We expect to be adding additional fields of information on each matching service registry in the next few months.

Send comments and inquiries to Abby Marquand at amarquand@phinational.org.

This project is funded with support from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (Grant No. H133B080002) through the Center for Personal Assistance Services.

About the Project

Personal assistance and home care services are changing. Consumers are increasingly receiving these services through self-directed programs where consumers or their families hire and supervise caregivers directly. The absence of a traditional home care agency can pose challenges for consumers and workers seeking to locate one another.

Several states are experimenting with solutions that more efficiently connect consumers with workers. One approach is a “matching service registry.” This labor market intermediary creates a platform for matching supply and demand by allowing consumers to tap into an up-to-date registry of available workers, and workers to signal their availability for employment.

The goals of this project are to:

  • Document and track matching service registries across the states
  • Highlight learnings from these efforts
  • Encourage policies that improve and support infrastructure for self-direction

What Matching Services Do

Matching service registries play a very different role from two other kinds of registries that exist in all states: “safety registries” such as criminal background check and abuse registries, and “certification registries” such as nurse aide registries listing individuals who have satisfactorily completed a state’s training requirements to work in nursing homes and other long-term care programs.

Matching service registries typically gather detailed information about the consumer’s needs and preferences and the worker’s availability, skills, and preferences. Consumers and workers must each initiate their side of the transaction. The gathered information is electronically stored and updated.

When a consumer contacts the registry with a request for a worker, the matching itself is done in one of two ways: either the consumer performs their own electronic searches of the worker database using one or more searchable criteria (e.g., zip code or availability by day of week/time of day), or connects with trained staff who in turn conduct the database searches and report the search results back to the consumer.

Matching services also may offer additional services such as: worker screening and orientation, access to consumer and worker training, and recruitment and outreach to potential workers.

What We Are Finding

Matching service registries are a growing phenomenon but they are still limited. Two-thirds of states lack any publicly-supported matching service.

The PHI Matching Services Project has identified:

  • 15 state-based matching services
  • 4 states with a regional matching service
  • 2 states where matching services were defunded in 2011
  • 1 state where a matching services has recently been legislated
  • 28 states with no state or regional matching service

CLASS Plan

Building Infrastructure to Support CLASS: The Potential of Matching Service Registries -- Explores the potential of registries for building needed infrastructure and identifies key design issues for their development.

Reauthorization of the Older Americans Act (OAA)

The upcoming reauthorization of the OAA presents an important opportunity to improve and modernize the information and assistance networks maintained by the country’s aging services network. Matching service registries can play a significant role in building a 21st century infrastructure for self-direction.

Resources

News

Topic: 
Consumer-Directed Services & Supports