Texas home care policies & procedures, built to 26 TAC Chapter 558

How home care licensing works in Texas

In Texas, a non-medical (private-pay personal-care) agency is licensed by HHSC as a Home and Community Support Services Agency (HCSSA) holding the “Personal Assistance Services” (PAS) category, under 26 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 558. There is no separate non-medical home care license. PAS is one of six HCSSA license categories under 26 TAC §558.13(b); the others cover licensed home health (with and without Medicare certification and home dialysis) and hospice. HHSC requires every applicant to develop and enforce its own written policies across staffing, client rights, emergency preparedness, infection control, supervision, and service delivery; the state supplies no manual or template, and a surveyor verifies all required policies are in place at the initial on-site survey.

Your written policy & procedure manual sits inside a larger licensing process. Here is the path the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) expects, and where your manual fits.

1. 1Form a legal entity and get it in good standing with both the Texas Secretary of State and the Texas Comptroller (required before HHSC will issue a license).
2. 2Designate an administrator and an alternate administrator. For a PAS-only agency, both must complete the HCSSA Pre-Survey Computer-Based Training (CBT).
3. 3A first-time administrator and alternate complete 24 clock hours of administrator training by the end of the first 12 months after designation, at least 8 of them in the 12 months before designation (§558.259).
4. 4Complete the HCSSA Presurvey Training, a computer-based training, before you submit the application; the signed certificates go in with it (§558.13(a)). It does not count toward the 24 administrator training hours.
5. 5Develop the agency’s full written P&P set required by Chapter 558 (staffing, client rights/complaints, emergency preparedness, infection control, supervision, service plans, client records). HHSC requires these but does not provide them.
6. 6Submit the application in TULIP (Texas Unified Licensure Information Portal) via Form 2021, upload all required documents, and pay the non-refundable license fee.
7. 7Respond within 30 days to any deficiency notice HHSC posts in TULIP; once complete, HHSC issues or denies the license within about 45 days.
8. 8Become operational: admit and begin serving at least one client under the PAS category.
9. 9No later than 6 months after the license effective date, admit and serve at least one client and submit Form 2020 (Notification of Readiness for Initial Survey) requesting the initial survey (§558.521). HHSC then surveys unannounced.
10. 10Pass the initial on-site survey, at which the surveyor reviews the client list and verifies all written policies required by Chapter 558 are adopted and enforced.

Timeline: After a complete application, HHSC issues or denies the license within about 45 days (with a 30-day window to cure deficiencies in TULIP). You then become operational and request the initial on-site survey within 6 months of the license effective date. Reaching a fully surveyed PAS agency commonly takes several months, depending on entity setup, the 8-hour administrator training and CBT, and admitting your first client.

See what you actually get

A finished, formatted manual organized to the rule, not a checklist or a generic template. A page from your Texas manual:

See the full sample manual →

Key Texas facts to know before you apply

Texas home care licensing FAQ