Which iBudget Handbook is current in Florida?

The May 2023 iBudget Handbook. A September 2015 standalone Appendix B is still circulated and still appears on APD provider-training pages, which is why many providers are working from the older document.

Does the older 2015 appendix give wrong training requirements?

We compared the training tables in both and they agree on each requirement we track. Nothing was wrong in practice — but cite the May 2023 handbook, because that is the version an inspector works from.

How many annual in-service hours does the iBudget Handbook require?

Eight hours per fiscal year for every Residential Habilitation tier, per Appendix C of the May 2023 handbook. For behavior-focused tiers the difference is the subject matter, not the hour count.

Compliance08/16/2026·5 min read

Which iBudget Handbook Is Current? (You're Probably Reading a 2015 PDF)

APD still serves a September 2015 copy of Appendix B at the link most providers land on. The operative handbook is May 2023. Here's how to tell which one you have, and why it matters less than you'd fear.

If you have gone looking for APD's training requirements, you have almost certainly ended up on a PDF titled "iBudget Handbook — Appendix B — Training Requirements." It is linked from APD's provider training page, it is the top search result, and it is the document everyone quotes at each other in Facebook groups.

Look at the footer. Every page of it says September 2015.

The operative document is the May 2023 handbook

The current Developmental Disabilities Individual Budgeting Waiver Services Coverage and Limitations Handbook — the one adopted by reference in AHCA rule 59G-13.070 — is dated May 2023, and it contains its own Appendix B and Appendix C. That is what a reviewer is working from. The standalone 2015 appendix is a leftover file that never got taken down.

The reassuring part

We read both, cover to cover, and compared the training tables row by row. For the requirements a group home lives under — Core Competencies, Zero Tolerance, HIPAA, First Aid, CPR, AIDS/HIV/Infection Control, Medication Administration and Validation, Behavioral Emergency Procedures — the time frames and frequencies are identical between the two editions. If you have been working from the 2015 appendix, you have not been getting those wrong.

What the 2023 edition changes is mostly around the edges, and some of it matters:

The grace period for existing staff to come into compliance with new requirements went from 18 months to 180 days.
APD iConnect training exists in the 2023 edition and simply does not appear in the 2015 one, with its own separate timeline.
The 2023 edition states outright that failing to complete required training on time is "grounds for APD to exercise disciplinary action" under the Medicaid Waiver Services Agreement — language the older appendix does not carry.
Course links moved. The 2015 appendix points at apdcares.org URLs that no longer resolve the way they did.

The line worth knowing about

The May 2023 Appendix B contains a sentence the 2015 version does not:

"The requirements in Chapter 65G-10, F.A.C. will take precedence over this handbook."

Before you go looking for what that overrides — Chapter 65G-10 is Support Coordinator training. Three rules: definitions, the pre-service Level 1 and Level 2 training, and in-service. If you run a group home and do not employ waiver support coordinators, it does not change anything for you. If you do, read it, because it wins.

And the one that actually governs your license

The handbook is not the only authority on staff training, and for a licensed residential facility it may not even be the first one. Rule 65G-2.008(7), F.A.C. sets out staff training requirements directly — Core Competencies, Zero Tolerance, first aid and CPR, HIV/AIDS — each in its own paragraph, with its own deadline. That is a licensing rule, checked at a different inspection than the handbook, and it is worth reading in the original.

How to check what you are holding

Open the PDF and look at the footer of any page: the edition date is printed on every one. If it says September 2015, you have the leftover. Get the May 2023 handbook from AHCA's Medicaid rules pages, or from APD's iBudget documents section, and keep the edition date with your notes — so the next person who reads them knows what they were reading.

This is the kind of thing Care Wizard does in the background: our requirement register records which source each rule came from and the date a person last read it, and a monthly job re-checks the sources for changes. You can see the whole register, citations and all, without an account.

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.