CONSUMER ALERT: If your FMS interferes with your benefits, payments, authorized services, or access to medically necessary supports, you may discover that you have no straightforward remedy against that vendor—particularly if you never verified the legal person or business actually behind the FMS.
This post explains how to find out who is really receiving the POS money associated with your services, how to fact-check the vendor’s identity, how to request the underlying records, and why this due diligence is essential before something goes wrong.
As a Self-Determination Program consumer, I should not have to become a forensic investigator to determine who is actually receiving Purchase of Service money issued in connection with my services. A name on an FMS list, invoice, website, or email signature does not necessarily tell me the legal identity of the person or entity handling the money. “Informed choice” becomes an illusion if consumers are presented with a list of vendored FMS providers but are not given the information necessary to determine who owns or operates them, what legal entity stands behind the name, what qualifications they possess, and who is accountable when their conduct disrupts services.
An FMS is not an ordinary consumer purchase. The FMS occupies a financial-management position between the consumer’s individual budget and the workers, providers, reimbursements, and supports on which the consumer may depend. If something goes wrong, a consumer should not learn only then that the regional center’s answer is effectively, “You chose this FMS,” “There are other FMS providers,” or “Take your complaint to the FMS.” Before accepting that allocation of responsibility, find out exactly whom the regional center vendored and who is receiving the POS money.
HOW TO FIND OUT WHO YOUR FMS REALLY IS
- Submit a California Public Records Act request. Send it to the DDS Office of Risk Management <orm@dds.ca.gov>
- Template at the end of this post.
THEN FACT-CHECK IT YOURSELF
Take the information the regional center gives you and independently verify it. Search the California Secretary of State business database for the exact legal entity. The link is here: https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/business (and tends to be giving technical errors). At this point, you will know what legal person the regional center authorized as a vendor.
ASK THE QUESTION THAT MATTERS BEFORE THERE IS A CRISIS
If you are told that you chose the vendor, ask what information concerning the vendor’s legal identity, ownership, qualifications, compliance history, and accountability mechanisms was provided to you when you supposedly exercised that “informed choice.”
That is the due diligence consumers should perform before an FMS dispute threatens benefits or continuity of services.
A list of choices is not necessarily informed choice. You cannot meaningfully choose a fiduciary intermediary when you do not know who the legal person behind the name is, who receives the money, what was actually vetted, and who will be accountable when that intermediary fails to perform.
If you find out that your FMS is just another fly-by-night resume-holder who can legally disappear after you ‘chose’ them, how would it make you feel if you find out that their vendor address is a UPS mail box? Who will you call if your vendors can’t be onboarded? Ghostbusters?
Template to submit:
| to: | DDS Office of Risk Management <orm@dds.ca.gov> |
Subject: California Public Records Act Request – Brandnew FMS Vendor Information
Dear Public Records Coordinator:
Pursuant to the California Public Records Act, Government Code section 7920 et seq., I request copies of records sufficient to identify the legal entity vendored by your regional center as “Brandnew FMS.”
Specifically, I request records identifying:
- The full legal name of the vendored entity.
- The entity type (corporation, LLC, nonprofit, partnership, etc.).
- The principal business address and mailing address maintained by the regional center.
- The names and titles of the entity’s owners, members, managers, officers, directors, or other individuals identified in the vendorization records as having authority over the entity.
- The vendor number assigned by the regional center.
- Any fictitious business name (DBA) or assumed business name under which the entity is vendored.
- The Secretary of State entity number, federal EIN (if maintained in the vendor file), or any other identifying registration information contained in the vendorization records.
- The executed vendorization agreement, vendor profile, vendor application, and any amendments identifying the legal entity responsible for providing Financial Management Services.
- Any records identifying the individual authorized to execute contracts or vendorization documents on behalf of the entity.
If any portion of these records is withheld, please identify each record withheld, the statutory exemption relied upon, and provide all reasonably segregable non-exempt portions.
If responsive records exist in electronic format, I request that they be provided electronically.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.
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