What does Qlarant check first in a Provider Discovery Review?

Standard 1 of Qlarant's Provider Discovery Review Administrative Tool is the APD Employee/Contractor Roster maintained in the AHCA Background Screening Clearinghouse Results Website. The tool states that Not Met on this standard is an automatic Alert.

Can I use an Excel export of my Clearinghouse roster for a Qlarant review?

No. Qlarant's Administrative Tool says plainly that the Excel export of the Clearinghouse Roster cannot be accepted. The reviewer wants a printed copy of the APD Employee/Contractor Roster, or to view it electronically in the Clearinghouse itself.

Does a gap between two trainings fail a Qlarant standard?

Usually not. Qlarant's Administrative Tool says that where a provider has evidence training is current at the time of review but there was a lapse between the most recent and previous training dates, the standard is scored Met with a Discovery statement describing the lapse.

Do classroom Zero Tolerance certificates still count for APD?

Not since 17 September 2024. Qlarant's Administrative Tool states that effective 9/17/2024 Zero Tolerance may only be obtained by completing the course in TRAIN Florida, and that training from a classroom session with an APD approved trainer will no longer be accepted after that date.

What happens if a staff member had a break in employment of more than 90 days?

A full new screening is required. Qlarant's Administrative Tool lists Provider was not fully re-screened following a greater than 90 day lapse in employment as a Not Met reason carrying an Alert, and Not Met on the screening standard is an automatic Alert unless it relates to the Attestation of Good Moral Character.

Reviews09/07/2026·10 min read

Qlarant Publishes the Exact Standards It Scores Your Staff Records Against — Here Are the Traps Inside Them

The Administrative Tool is 99 pages, it is free, and almost nobody reads it. Standard number one is your staff roster, and Not Met on it is an automatic Alert. Here is what the first two sections actually say, including six things that surprise people.

What standards does Qlarant score a Florida APD provider against?

Qlarant publishes its Provider Discovery Review Administrative Tool free on the Florida Statewide Quality Assurance Program site. It is 99 pages and it is the actual instrument a reviewer fills in. Its first section is General Administrative and its second is Qualifications and Training. Standard 1 is your APD Employee/Contractor Roster in the AHCA Clearinghouse, and the tool says outright that Not Met on that standard is an automatic Alert.

Most preparation for a Qlarant review is guesswork, which is odd, because the review tool is public and downloadable and has been all along. We read the first two sections against what actually catches people. Here is what is in them.

Scope, stated plainly: we read the whole thing — all 99 pages and all 51 standards, in three sections. General Administrative (9 standards), Qualifications and Training (20), and Service Specific Employee (the rest, broken down by service from Behavior Analysis through Supported Living Coaching). Everything below is quoted from the 1 July 2025 version, v11. Check the current one before relying on it — Qlarant updated its Operational Policies manual on 21 July 2026.

Standard 1 is your roster, and it is an automatic Alert

Before anything about care, training or notes, the tool asks whether you maintain an APD Employee/Contractor Roster inside the AHCA Background Screening Clearinghouse Results Website. It has to show all of these columns:

Last Name, First Name, Agency (showing APD), Provider Name
License #, Position Type
Provisional Hire/Contract Date and Permanent Hire/Contract Date
Retained Prints Expiration Date and End Date

Two traps sit in there. The tool states that the Excel export of the Clearinghouse Roster cannot be accepted — a printed copy or the live screen, not a spreadsheet you exported. And if the Retained Prints Expiration Date has expired, that is a Not Met carrying an Alert on its own.

This is the standard that produces the “can you send me your staff roster” conversation operators keep having, and it is scored before anything else.

Level II screening: four components, and most failures are Alerts

Under Qualifications and Training, standard 1 is the screening, and it is not one document. The tool requires all of:

A complete APD Attestation of Good Moral Character — the July 2024 version, with handwritten initials beside each acknowledgement, a signature, and a date. Attestations from AHCA, DCF or CDC+ are not accepted.
A Local Law/Criminal Records Check from the county of residence, at hire and at each five-year re-screening, through local law enforcement. Public internet search results are not acceptable unless specifically authorized by the APD State Office.
A current APD General clearance showing “Eligible” in the Clearinghouse.
Re-screening every five years, and a fresh full screening after a break in employment of more than 90 days.

The tool lists fourteen Not Met reasons for this standard and marks almost all of them with an Alert, including Provider was not fully re-screened following a greater than 90 day lapse in employment. It then says: Not Met on this standard is an automatic Alert unless related to the APD Attestation of Good Moral Character.

Zero Tolerance and Direct Care Core Competencies

Zero Tolerance is pre-service and then every three years. The date rule is stricter than most people track: the most recent training must be less than three years before the review date, and the previous training must have been less than three years before that most recent one.

Direct Care Core Competencies is required once, and must be completed within 90 days of providing services. For anyone who started during the review period, missing that 90-day window is its own Not Met reason.

And the rule that quietly invalidates old certificates: effective 17 September 2024, both may only be obtained through TRAIN Florida. Classroom training with an APD approved trainer is no longer accepted after that date. A TRAIN certificate must carry the participant's name, the course title, the completion date, be the official TRAIN certificate, and include the learner's TRAIN Florida User ID — a missing User ID is its own listed Not Met reason.

A small one that catches people filing paperwork in a hurry: certificates should not all show the same completion date. The tool notes each training is intended to take roughly six hours and that the hours should appear on the certificate.

Three things in the tool that work in your favor

A lapse in the middle is not a fail. If training is current at the time of review but there was a gap between the most recent and previous training, the standard is scored Met with a Discovery statement describing the lapse.
Late but complete screening is Met. Where all components are complete at the review but were not completed within the required timeframes, the tool says score Met and add a Discovery statement about timeliness.
“At the time of the review” has a definition — completed no later than the day prior to the start of the review. That is a real deadline you can work to, not a vague one.

Your in-service year is probably not the year you think it is

This one appears in every service-specific in-service standard, worded identically, and it is the most commonly misunderstood thing in the tool.

The 12-month window for annual in-service hours is determined by the provider's date of hire — unless you can demonstrate another well-documented revolving 12-month period. And the tool is emphatic about one thing it cannot be:

The 12-month period cannot be based on the annual Provider Review date each year. So counting your in-service year from your last Qlarant visit is exactly the method the tool rules out.

A consistent year of your own — a fiscal year, say — is allowed, because it is “another well documented revolving 12 month period”. But the operative word is documented: you have to be able to show the reviewer what your year is and that you have used it consistently.

Two more that catch people on the same standard:

Re-taking a basic APD course does not count toward in-service hours, unless it was identified as a need in your Plan of Remediation.
In-service certificates must show the credit hours. A certificate without the number of hours on it is a listed Not Met reason, on top of the usual name, title, date and trainer details.

The hours themselves vary by service: four for Personal Supports and Life Skills Development 1, eight for Residential Habilitation, Supported Living Coaching, Behavior Assistant and the other Life Skills levels.

Which of these Care Wizard actually tracks

Honestly, and including the gaps:

Level II screening components — Attestation of Good Moral Character, Local Law/Criminal Records Check, APD General clearance, and the 90-day re-hire rule. Tracked.
The training clocks — Zero Tolerance, Direct Care Core Competencies, HIPAA, HIV/AIDS, CPR, First Aid, medication administration and its validation, enteral formula, and the reactive strategies certificate. Tracked.
Annual in-service hours, including the different counts by service. Tracked.
Staff driver licences — standard 18, which must be valid across the entire period of review. Tracked.
Hire dates and screening dates that the roster has to agree with. Tracked — though the roster itself lives in the Clearinghouse and only you can maintain it there.
Vehicle insurance and registration — agency vehicles (General Administrative 2 and 3) and personal vehicles used for transport (standards 19 and 20). Both must hold for the entire period of review, not just on the day. Not tracked.
Education and experience qualifications per service — degrees, years of experience, behavior analyst levels. Not tracked — those are hiring facts rather than dates that expire.
Incident reports, abuse-neglect-exploitation reporting, medication error reports. Not tracked — processes and records we deliberately stay out of.

The pattern is the one worth taking away even if you never use our software: a large share of what a reviewer scores you on is a date, and the tool telling you which dates is free. Download it before your next review rather than after.

Sources

This article is general information for Florida APD group-home providers, not legal advice or a guarantee of compliance. Rules change and vary by region — always confirm the current requirement with the cited source and your APD regional office.