SB 371 RSA Annual Report: The PCA Wage Report Every Maryland RSA Must File

If you run a Maryland residential service agency (RSA — a licensed home care agency) that bills Medicaid for personal assistance services, you owe the state an annual wage report on your personal care aides — and the official 2026 form just landed in provider inboxes.

Who this applies to

Every provider RSA that pays personal care aides (PCAs) for personal assistance services under Community First Choice (CFC), Community Options (CO), Community Personal Assistance Services (CPAS), or any other home- and community-based services program administered by the Maryland Department of Health. It does not cover services provided through the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA).

If your agency is hourly-care Medicaid work through LTSSMaryland, this is you.

What this is

Senate Bill 371 of 2024 — the Homecare Workers Livable Wage Act of 2024 (Chapter 864, now Health-General §15-155) — requires each provider RSA to submit a report to the Maryland Department of Labor “on or before September 1 each year, beginning in 2025.” The report documents your average, highest, and lowest PCA wage rates, plus whatever else the Department of Labor asks for.

Here’s the part operators should actually care about: this isn’t paperwork for paperwork’s sake. The same law requires MDH to compare Medicaid reimbursement rates against providers’ actual costs every two years and to determine the adjustment needed to bring PCA wages to at least 150% of the state minimum wage. Your wage data is the dataset that rate review runs on. Reporting accurately is how the true cost of hourly care gets in front of the people who set your rates.

The Department of Labor treats individual responses as confidential — data is aggregated and de-identified before sharing (MDH is the one exception).

The dates that matter

• Statutory deadline: September 1 each year. The 2026 report covers the period July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026.
• The final 2026 form went out September 1, 2026 — the evening of the deadline itself. So no, you’re not behind because you haven’t filed; nobody could have. File promptly now that the form exists, and don’t sit on it.
• Going forward, expect this every year: reporting period closes June 30, report due September 1.

What the form asks

The 2026 report is a Google Form, roughly 30 questions. Before you open it, pull one payroll report and one billing report for July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026, limited to staff providing personal assistance services:

1. Headcounts — how many workers you paid for PCA services, and how many separated during the year (voluntary and involuntary, all of them).
2. Hours — total PCA hours paid (excluding PTO and holidays), overtime hours, total hours submitted to MDH for payment, and a chart of hours broken down by jurisdiction (this one is a file upload — any format, as long as all hours are accounted for).
3. Compensation — gross total PCA compensation before deductions (including bonuses and differentials, excluding mileage, benefits, and training/PPE costs), plus gross overtime compensation.
4. Wage rates — your lowest, highest, and unweighted average regular hourly rate, using the federal FLSA definition of “regular rate.” If a worker had more than one rate during the year, you provide the hours at each rate.
5. Other compensation — yes/no plus headcounts for overtime, shift differential, bonuses, commission, and tips.
6. Benefits — yes/no plus headcounts for paid sick leave, paid vacation, health insurance, disability insurance, and retirement (any employer contribution counts).
7. Exempted costs — what you spent on required PCA training, personal protective equipment, and travel/transportation reimbursement.
8. Attestation — signed by an authorized representative; you’re attesting to accuracy.

Most of this comes straight out of your payroll system plus your LTSSMaryland billing records. The jurisdiction breakdown and the multiple-rate breakdown are the two items that take actual work — build those first.

What to do about it

1. Find the September 1 email from the MDH Office of Long Term Services and Supports (“Senate Bill 371 Annual Report – Final Version for RSAs”) — it has the form link and the official report PDF.
2. Pull the data for July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026 using the list above, PCA/personal-assistance staff only.
3. Build the jurisdiction chart — a simple spreadsheet of hours by county works.
4. File it, signed by someone authorized to attest for the agency.
5. Calendar it for next year — the data pull is far easier in July, right after the reporting period closes, than in a September scramble.

Questions or trouble with the form go to the Division of Labor & Industry at [email protected].

Don’t confuse it with the HCBS Cost Survey

Two different wage-data obligations are running this fall. This SB 371 report goes to the Department of Labor and was due September 1. The HCBS Cost Survey (the CMS Access Rule / payment adequacy survey) goes to MDH’s contractor and is due September 30, 2026. Filing one does not satisfy the other — plan on both.

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The Care Insider is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Office of Health Care Quality or the Maryland Department of Health. This is operator-to-operator plain-language explanation, not legal advice — always read the original guidance.