Does Colorado Pay For In-Home Care?

Colorado does pay for in-home care in some cases. Seniors who are enrolled in Medicaid can get a waiver to help them pay for in-home care. Beneficiaries enrolled in Health First Colorado, the state’s Medicaid program, may be eligible to get financial assistance for their home care services through the Colorado Home and Community-Based Services Waiver for Elderly, Blind and Disabled (HCBS-EBD).

The Colorado HCBS-EBD waiver directly issues payment to caregivers for the hours they provide in-home care for enrolled seniors. Consumer-directed attendant care services are at the heart of the waiver program, but beneficiaries may be able to get much more support than this. The program also helps pay for adult day services, electronic monitoring and safety hardware, limited home modifications and home-delivered meals. In an effort to help seniors stay out of nursing home facilities to the extent possible, the program also covers some or all of the cost of non-medical transportation, alternative care facilities, homemaker services, home-delivered meals, some life skills classes and a limited number of respite care hours.

Seniors in Colorado may be eligible to enroll in the HCBS-EBD program if they are enrolled in Health First Colorado and have a disability that calls for in-home support services. In addition to being enrolled in Medicaid, applicants must be seniors aged 65 and older, blind or otherwise disabled as confirmed by a doctor. Beneficiaries must be current permanent residents of the state of Colorado and either U.S. citizens or holders of another legal residency status.

Beneficiaries of the Colorado HCBS-EBD waiver can hire personal acquaintances as caregivers, but to be paid through the program, the caregivers must be employed by an approved in-home support agency. The program caps paid caregiver hours to just 444 personal care units a year, or just under 1.3 hours a day. Enrollees may be able to get more direct control over how their care is delivered through the program’s Consumer Directed Attendant Support Services (CDASS) option, which requires a separate application process and case worker assessment. CDASS enrollees can directly employ the caregiver of their choice, who does not need to be employed by an agency, for up to the maximum limit of their allotted monthly hours.