CareAcademy trains aides. FileFlo holds the evidence.
This isn't FileFlo versus CareAcademy. Keep CareAcademy for the §75-hour federal HHA curriculum, the §484.80 12-hour annual in-service, and state-specific aide hour add-ons. FileFlo holds the resulting certificates, competency packets, supervisory-visit logs, background checks, and §484.115 administrator files under 42 CFR Part 484 and 42 CFR Part 488. Keep the training engine. Add the evidence binder.
$299/mo flat · Unlimited users · No sales call
One trains the aides. One holds the proof.
CareAcademy delivers the training
It delivers the federal §75-hour HHA curriculum, the 12-hour annual in-service, and state-specific aide hour libraries for California, New York, Texas, and Florida. It is genuinely good at this; keep using it. CareAcademy was built to deliver the course and track the hours, not to assemble the citation-mapped binder a CHAP or ACHC surveyor walks under 42 CFR Part 484.
FileFlo is the evidence binder
It holds the §75-hour certificate, the competency packet, the RN supervisory-visit log, the background check, the §484.115 administrator file, the QAPI and governing-body evidence, and the 29 CFR §552.6 companionship-exemption file, assembled into a one-click survey binder mapped to the citation a surveyor speaks. The layer CareAcademy was never designed to be.
Where each tool actually wins.
For most home health and home care agencies the answer is both: keep CareAcademy for caregiver training delivery; add FileFlo for the survey-binder evidence layer.
FileFlo wins for
- CHAP, ACHC, CMS, and state survey-binder assembly
- 42 CFR Part 484 HHA Conditions of Participation evidence
- 42 CFR §484.115 administrator + clinical-manager qualification file
- Supervisory-visit logs (RN every 14 days under §484.80(h))
- 29 CFR §552.6 FLSA companionship-exemption file (private duty)
- Flat $299/mo unlimited users, no per-caregiver inflation
CareAcademy wins for
- Caregiver training LMS course delivery (HHA, PCA, CNA, DSP)
- 42 CFR §484.80 §75-hour HHA federal curriculum delivery
- State-specific aide hour libraries (CA, NY, TX, FL, IL)
- 12-hour annual in-service training delivery + tracking
- Per-aide course-completion certificate generation
- Day-to-day caregiver training operations at scale
CareAcademy alone vs. CareAcademy + FileFlo.
Based on publicly available CareAcademy materials, customer reports, and the FileFlo product as of June 2026. This is an addition, not a replacement.
| Capability | FileFlo$299/mo · unlimited users | CareAcademy~$15-30/caregiver/mo |
|---|---|---|
| 42 CFR Part 484 HHA Conditions of Participation binder | Per-CoP citation evidence file | Training delivery, not CoP binder |
| 42 CFR §484.80 aide §75-hour training course delivery | Not an LMS; stores certificates only | Native HHA §75-hour curriculum |
| 42 CFR §484.80 aide §75-hour certificate evidence file | Certificate + competency packet per aide | Completion certificate generation |
| 42 CFR §484.80 12-hour annual in-service tracking | Roster + RN signature + reminder calendar | Annual hour tracking per aide |
| 42 CFR §484.115 administrator + clinical-manager qualification file | License + experience + governing-body file | Aide-focused, not administrator-focused |
| Supervisory-visit log (RN every 14 days under §484.80(h)) | Per-aide RN visit log + signature trail | No supervisory-visit workflow |
| Background check + TB test + aide-registry evidence | Per-aide evidence file + expiration alerts | Not part of training LMS |
| 29 CFR §552.6 FLSA companionship-exemption documentation (private duty) | DOL companionship-exemption evidence file | Outside training LMS scope |
| QAPI + governing-body + plan-of-care evidence (§484.65, §484.60) | Lives in compliance binder | Outside training LMS scope |
| 42 CFR Part 488 survey-binder citation-mapped workflow | Citation-mapped binder + CAP tracker | No native survey-binder workflow |
| 45 CFR Part 164 HIPAA audit trail per document | Every view, download, edit logged | Training records audit log |
| AI document classification | 600+ doc types auto-tagged | Manual upload + folder filing |
| State-specific caregiver hour add-ons (CA, NY, TX, FL) | Not a state-curriculum tracker | State-by-state hour libraries |
| Pricing model | $299/mo flat, unlimited users | Per-caregiver ~$15-30/aide/mo |
| Free trial (no sales call) | 5-day full access, no card | Demo + sales cycle + scoping |
| Setup time | Under 60 minutes, self-serve | Multi-week aide onboarding + curriculum config |
CareAcademy pricing is per-caregiver and varies by agency size, state-curriculum mix, and annual contract. Verify directly with CareAcademy for an exact quote; range cited from public sources and customer reports.
Where each tool sits inside Part 484, §484.80, §484.115, Part 488, and §552.6.
The Medicare home health Conditions of Participation, the aide training rule, the administrator-qualification rule, the survey-procedures rule, and the DOL companionship-services rule map cleanly onto the right system. Here is the breakdown.
42 CFR Part 484: Home Health Agency Conditions of Participation
Part 484 is the regulation a CHAP, ACHC, or CMS validation surveyor walks during a triennial or complaint survey of a Medicare-certified home health agency. CareAcademy holds the aide training completions and the 12-hour annual in-service tracking that supports §484.80 aide requirements. FileFlo wins for survey-binder assembly: governing-body minutes, QAPI evidence under §484.65, plan-of-care signatures per §484.60, OASIS submission proof per §484.45, executed BAAs, contracted-service files, and the citation-mapped binder a surveyor pulls per Part 484 citation. CareAcademy trains the aides; FileFlo is the binder of evidence the surveyor walks across the entire CoP set.
42 CFR §484.80: Home health aide services
§484.80 requires every HHA aide to complete a §75-hour training program (16 classroom hours plus 16 supervised practical hours before patient contact), pass a competency evaluation, and complete at least 12 hours of in-service training every 12 months. CareAcademy delivers the federal §75-hour curriculum, the state-specific add-on hours, and the 12-hour annual in-service at the LMS layer. FileFlo holds the resulting document evidence: the §75-hour completion certificate, the competency-evaluation packet with RN observation notes, the in-service rosters with RN signature, the supervisory-visit log signed every 14 days under §484.80(h), the TB test, the background check, and the state aide-registry verification per aide. Both are required during a CHAP or ACHC survey; together they make the §484.80 evidence file defensible.
42 CFR §484.115: Administrator and clinical-manager qualifications
FileFlo wins here cleanly. §484.115 requires the administrator to be a licensed physician, RN, or other licensed clinical professional with at least one year of supervisory or administrative experience in home health, and the clinical manager must be an RN, PT, OT, SLP, audiologist, social worker, or physician with the same one-year experience floor. CareAcademy does not run primary-source license verification for the administrator or clinical manager and does not maintain the §484.115 qualification file. FileFlo holds the administrator's license PDF with current expiration, the clinical manager's RN license with state board verification printout, the resume documenting the one-year home health experience, the governing-body delegation policy, and the annual performance evaluation: the exact citation-mapped evidence file CHAP and ACHC routinely cite during re-accreditation surveys.
42 CFR Part 488: Survey, certification, and enforcement procedures
Part 488 is the regulation that governs how CMS, state survey agencies, and accrediting organizations (CHAP, ACHC, Joint Commission) actually conduct the home health survey: entrance conference, document review, home visits with aides, exit conference, and the Statement of Deficiencies (CMS-2567) workflow. FileFlo wins here cleanly for the document-review and SOD-response steps. CareAcademy can export per-aide training rolls when a surveyor asks for them, but the Part 488 document review covers the full Part 484 binder (governance, QAPI, OASIS, plan of care, supervisory visits, BAAs, contracted-service files), and the citation-mapped Statement of Deficiencies response is exactly the workflow FileFlo is purpose-built to produce. CareAcademy is not designed to assemble a Part 488 survey binder.
29 CFR §552.6: DOL companionship-services exemption (private-duty home care)
FileFlo wins here cleanly for any private-duty home care agency that runs caregivers on the DOL companionship-services exemption from the FLSA minimum wage and overtime rules. 29 CFR §552.6 defines "companionship services" narrowly (fellowship and protection, with no more than 20% of the caregiver's time spent on care tasks), and the Wage and Hour Division investigates these classifications during FLSA reviews. FileFlo holds the caregiver job description, the time-study evidence proving the 20% care-task ceiling, the signed exemption acknowledgment, the timesheet trail, and the corresponding state wage-and-hour evidence (some states like California, New York, and Massachusetts override the federal exemption with state-level overtime rules). CareAcademy is a training LMS and does not maintain DOL classification or wage-and-hour evidence.
45 CFR Part 164: HIPAA Security Rule
Both tools meet 45 CFR Part 164 obligations for PHI handling. The difference is scope: CareAcademy's audit trail covers training completions and per-aide course records at the LMS layer; FileFlo's audit trail covers every document access, download, edit, and binder export across the full Part 484 compliance evidence set, including the non-training documents (BAAs with every PHI vendor, risk assessments, contingency plans, breach notification logs, supervisory-visit logs, plan-of-care signatures) that an OCR investigator asks for during a HIPAA breach investigation.
One flat price vs. per-caregiver tiers.
FileFlo is one flat price. CareAcademy is per-caregiver with state-curriculum and course-library tiers. The math depends on caregiver headcount, state-specific add-ons, and annual contract length.
* Pricing range based on public sources and customer reports. Contact CareAcademy for exact per-caregiver quote and state-curriculum configuration.
The pricing comparison is not apples-to-apples. CareAcademy is a caregiver training LMS; FileFlo is the compliance document evidence layer. The right comparison is “CareAcademy + FileFlo” vs “CareAcademy + spreadsheets + shared drives + paper aide files”.
Platform definition.
FileFlo is a compliance document intelligence platform for home health and home care. It is not a learning management system. Instead, it ingests the documents a Medicare-certified home health agency or state-licensed home care provider must be able to produce on demand (§75-hour completion certificates, signed competency-evaluation packets, RN supervisory-visit logs, background checks, TB tests, state aide-registry verifications, license PDFs, plan-of-care acknowledgments, §484.115 administrator files, QAPI and governing-body evidence, and FLSA companionship-exemption duty logs), classifies each against its governing regulation (42 CFR Part 484 for the HHA Conditions of Participation, §484.80 for aide training, §484.115 for administrator qualifications, 42 CFR Part 488 for survey procedures, 29 CFR §552.6 for the companionship exemption, 45 CFR Part 164 for HIPAA), tracks expirations and missing signatures, and assembles a citation-mapped survey binder in one click.
The distinction matters because CareAcademy is a training platform: it is optimized for delivering the federal and state aide curriculum, tracking hours against the §484.80 floor, and generating completion certificates, not for assembling the regulatory evidence binder a CHAP, ACHC, CMS, or state Department of Health surveyor walks. CareAcademy can tell you an aide completed the §75-hour course and the 12-hour annual in-service; it cannot assemble the §484.115 administrator file, produce the RN supervisory-visit log per aide, build the governing-body and QAPI evidence per Conditions of Participation, or assemble the Part 488 Statement-of-Deficiencies response. FileFlo adds that evidence layer without disturbing the training operation beneath it.
Why a training system isn't a compliance system.
Federal home health survey rules do not ask whether an aide was trained; they ask whether the right evidence exists, is current, and can be produced when a surveyor arrives. Under 42 CFR §484.80, a Medicare-certified home health agency must verify every aide completed the §75-hour program, passed a competency evaluation, and receives at least 12 hours of in-service annually, and the agency must retain the certificate, competency packet, and the RN supervisory-visit log signed every 14 days under §484.80(h). Under 42 CFR §484.115, the administrator and clinical manager must each meet a license-and-experience floor that CHAP and ACHC routinely cite when the file is incomplete. Under 42 CFR Part 488, the survey itself proceeds through document review, home visits, and the CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies, against the full Part 484 binder: governance, QAPI, OASIS, plan of care, contracted services. A training LMS can deliver every course and track every hour and still leave the agency exposed, because training software has no concept of "the binder a surveyor will ask for across the full Conditions of Participation."
This is the gap FileFlo closes. Rather than ask agencies to abandon the LMS that trains their aides, FileFlo accepts the exports and uploaded documents from CareAcademy and applies a regulation-specific rule pack to them. Each document is mapped to the CFR section it satisfies, its expiration and missing-signature status is monitored, and the required-document checklist for the agency's accreditor surfaces anything absent, including the §484.115 administrator file, the supervisory-visit logs, the QAPI and governing-body evidence, and (for private-duty agencies on the companionship exemption) the 29 CFR §552.6 wage-and-hour evidence. When a CHAP, ACHC, CMS, or state surveyor arrives (or a Department of Labor investigator opens an FLSA review), the binder is assembled in the format that surveyor expects, with an immutable 45 CFR Part 164 audit trail on every access.
The practical result is that an agency keeps a single training system, CareAcademy, while gaining the survey-readiness, administrator-qualification, supervisory-log, and full-Part-484 document-assembly capabilities that an LMS does not provide. FileFlo is the compliance evidence layer; CareAcademy remains the system that delivers the training and tracks the hours.
Built by an operator, against the rules themselves.
Chad Griffith, Founder & CEO of FileFlo, built FileFlo's rule packs against the actual surveyor, inspector, and investigator protocols, not against a generic "compliance" abstraction. Each regulator's taxonomy maps documents to the exact CFR section that demands them, which is why FileFlo can sit alongside a training platform like CareAcademy and still speak the language a surveyor uses. FileFlo is built to complement the systems you already run: it holds the document evidence and never becomes another place your team has to deliver courses or track training hours.
Quick answers.
Last reviewed June 4, 2026.
Does FileFlo replace CareAcademy?
No. CareAcademy is a caregiver training LMS: it delivers state-required home health aide (HHA), home care aide, CNA, and DSP coursework, tracks per-state required hours (the 75-hour federal HHA floor under 42 CFR §484.80 plus state add-ons that often run 60-120 hours), runs annual in-service training (the §484.80 12-hour annual minimum), and produces completion certificates per caregiver. FileFlo is a compliance document evidence platform. CareAcademy trains your aides and tracks their hours. FileFlo holds the resulting document evidence (completed training certificates, signed competency-evaluation packets, supervisory-visit logs, background check results, TB tests, license PDFs, signed plan-of-care acknowledgments, and Wage and Hour Division Fair Labor Standards Act companionship-exemption documentation) under a citation-mapped audit binder tied to 42 CFR Part 484 (HHA CoPs), §484.80 (aide training), §484.115 (administrator + clinical-manager qualifications), 42 CFR Part 488 (survey procedures), and 29 CFR §552.6 (Department of Labor companionship-services rule for private-duty home care). CareAcademy is the training delivery engine; FileFlo is the document evidence binder a CHAP, ACHC, CMS, or state DOH surveyor pulls during a home health re-accreditation or a state private-duty licensing inspection.
How much does CareAcademy cost vs FileFlo?
CareAcademy publishes per-caregiver pricing on its site and through its sales team: most home health agencies, home care agencies, and DSP providers report effective costs of roughly $15 to $30 per caregiver per month depending on agency size, course library tier, and annual contract length. A 40-aide home care agency typically lands in the $600 to $1,200 per month range, and a 200-aide HHA can exceed $4,000 per month before add-on modules. FileFlo is a flat $299 per month with unlimited users for the compliance document layer: no per-caregiver inflation, no module add-on pricing, no implementation fee. The comparison is not apples-to-apples because CareAcademy is a caregiver training LMS while FileFlo is the document evidence platform. Verify CareAcademy pricing directly during their sales process; FileFlo pricing is locked at getfileflo.com/pricing.
Will FileFlo track 42 CFR §484.80 home health aide §75-hour training and 12-hour annual in-service evidence?
Yes. 42 CFR §484.80 requires a Medicare-certified home health agency to verify that every aide completed a §75-hour training program (16 hours of classroom plus 16 hours of supervised practical training before any patient contact, plus the balance), passed a competency evaluation, and completes at least 12 hours of in-service training every 12 months. CareAcademy delivers the courses, tracks the hours, and produces the completion certificate at the LMS layer. FileFlo holds the resulting document evidence per aide: the §75-hour completion certificate, the signed competency-evaluation packet with RN observation notes, the 12-hour annual in-service roster, the aide's TB test, the criminal background check, the OIG / state Medicaid exclusion screening result, the I-9, the W-4, the state aide-registry verification printout, and the supervisory-visit log signed by the RN every 14 days. The pattern is CareAcademy delivers the training; FileFlo holds the §484.80 evidence file a CHAP, ACHC, or state surveyor pulls during a re-accreditation or complaint survey under 42 CFR Part 488.
Does FileFlo handle 42 CFR §484.115 administrator and clinical-manager qualification evidence?
Yes. 42 CFR §484.115 requires the HHA administrator to hold a license as a physician, RN, or other licensed clinical professional plus at least one year of supervisory or administrative experience in home health or a related field, and the clinical manager must be an RN, PT, OT, SLP, audiologist, social worker, or physician with the same one-year experience floor. CareAcademy does not run primary-source license verification for the administrator or clinical manager; that is not what CareAcademy does. FileFlo holds the §484.115 evidence: the administrator's license PDF with current expiration date, the clinical manager's RN license PDF with state board verification printout, the resume documenting the one-year home health supervisory experience, the job description signed by the governing body, the annual performance evaluation, and the policy executed by the governing body delegating responsibility. CHAP and ACHC routinely cite §484.115 during re-accreditation surveys when the administrator file is incomplete, and that is the exact citation-mapped evidence file FileFlo assembles.
Can FileFlo generate a CHAP, ACHC, or state survey binder faster than CareAcademy for a home health re-accreditation?
FileFlo is purpose-built for survey readiness: one click pulls every document tied to an aide, RN, regulation citation, or branch office into a single PDF binder with an immutable 45 CFR Part 164 audit trail. CareAcademy can export training completion reports per aide and roll up agency-wide hour totals, but the resulting CHAP or ACHC re-accreditation binder requires manual reconciliation between the LMS, the EMR, payroll, the background check vendor, and the documents that live outside CareAcademy entirely: governing-body minutes, QAPI evidence per §484.65, OASIS submission proof per §484.45, plan-of-care signatures per §484.60, BAAs with every PHI vendor, contracted-service agreements with therapy contractors, and the §484.115 administrator file. Survey-binder assembly is the workflow where FileFlo measurably outperforms a training-focused platform like CareAcademy, not because CareAcademy's training data is wrong, but because document-as-evidence assembly across all of Part 484 is FileFlo's whole job and CareAcademy's job is delivering the training course and tracking the hours.
Does FileFlo integrate with CareAcademy for training records?
Today, FileFlo does not deliver LMS courses, host the §75-hour HHA training curriculum, or track per-aide training hours against the §484.80 floor; those stay in CareAcademy. FileFlo accepts uploaded training completion certificates, competency-evaluation packets, in-service rosters, supervisory-visit logs, background check results, TB tests, state aide-registry verifications, license PDFs, signed plan-of-care acknowledgments, BAA executions, and HIPAA risk-assessment documentation, then AI-classifies each document, attaches an immutable audit trail, and alerts on expiration, missing-signature, or out-of-cycle events. A native two-way CareAcademy integration is on the FileFlo roadmap. Until that ships, the pattern is: export from CareAcademy → upload to FileFlo → AI classify → audit-ready binder under 42 CFR Part 484, §484.80, §484.115, 42 CFR Part 488, and 29 CFR §552.6.
Keep CareAcademy. Add the evidence binder.
Build your first 42 CFR Part 484 evidence binder today and keep CareAcademy for aide training. 5-day free trial, no credit card, no sales call.
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