Colorado Medicaid Long-Term Care

Last updated: August 21, 2026 Jurisdiction: Colorado

Health First Colorado is Colorado Medicaid

Health First Colorado is Colorado’s Medicaid program, and HCPF is the state agency that administers it. HCPF’s Long-Term Services and Supports material describes LTSS as the collection of services and programs for older adults and people with disabilities, including institutional care and services delivered in homes and communities. The program name is important because a family may see “Medicaid,” “Health First Colorado,” “LTSS,” and “HCBS” in different notices while dealing with the same state system (Colorado HCPF; HCPF LTSS overview).

Colorado’s LTSS structure includes nursing-facility services, HCBS waivers, and the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, commonly called PACE. HCPF’s income-trust instructions expressly identify long-term-care institution care, HCBS, and PACE as the long-term-care settings for which its income-trust framework can establish and maintain income eligibility. The setting changes the service route, but a long-term-care financial review can still be necessary in each of those pathways (HCPF Income Trust instructions).

Financial eligibility and functional eligibility are separate

Medicaid long-term-care eligibility is not just an income-and-assets calculation. Colorado uses a Long-Term Care Level of Care Eligibility Assessment, formerly associated with the ULTC 100.2 form, as part of its LTSS case-management tools. The published assessment instructions say that qualifying for Medicaid long-term-care services generally requires deficits in two of six activities of daily living or a qualifying moderate-or-greater need in behavior or memory/cognition under supervision; the assessment also contains medical and functional information (Colorado LTSS eligibility assessment; HCPF case-management tools).

That functional determination should be kept distinct from the county or eligibility-site financial determination. A person can have a serious diagnosis without meeting the published functional screen, or can meet the functional screen but need further work on resources, income, transfers, or an income trust. HCPF’s current long-term-care eligibility rule is the better starting point than a general Medicaid income chart when the request is for nursing-facility, waiver, or PACE coverage (HCPF long-term-care eligibility rule).

Start with the right pathway and records

The practical starting point is to identify the requested setting, contact the appropriate Colorado case-management or eligibility channel, and preserve medical, income, resource, and transfer records. HCPF’s public LTSS page directs people to information on waiver programs, providers, and LTSS supports; CMS explains that HCBS waiver authority is the federal mechanism through which states may furnish defined community services as an alternative to institutional care (HCPF LTSS programs; CMS HCBS waiver authorities).

Colorado starting point: use Health First Colorado’s LTSS pathway, complete the functional level-of-care process, and make sure the financial review is for the requested institutional, HCBS, or PACE benefit rather than a general Medicaid category (HCPF LTSS overview).

For the broader funding framework, see Medicaid (Baseline). A case manager, eligibility professional, or Colorado elder-law lawyer can help apply the current rules to the person’s actual care setting and records.

Not mutually exclusive. Most families combine two or three funding pillars — this one rarely stands alone. The Journey Assessment ranks all ten pillars against your specific situation and recommends the top three.

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Health First Colorado is Colorado Medicaid

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