Screening, eligibility, and managed care
For Long Term Care Community Services, Delaware requires medical, technical, and financial eligibility, then selection of a managed-care organization. The manual assigns medical eligibility to the DMMA Pre-Admission Screening Unit and requires the applicant to need nursing-facility level of care as DMMA defines it (Delaware LTCCS eligibility policy).
DSHP-Plus is not a way around the long-term-care financial rules. The state’s long-term-care rules apply the transfer review to an institutionalized individual, a term that includes a person receiving the specified home- and community-based services; income, resources, transfer history, and the level-of-care decision should therefore be assembled at the same time (Delaware transfer policy definitions).
Developmental-disability services use the Lifespan Waiver
Delaware’s Division of Developmental Disabilities Services administers the separate 1915(c) Lifespan Waiver. The current waiver materials say an enrollee must first meet DDDS service eligibility under Delaware Administrative Code criteria; that is a different target population and entry process from DSHP-Plus for older adults and people with physical disabilities (DDDS Lifespan Waiver application).
The 2024 Lifespan Waiver application states that Delaware does not limit the number of participants it serves at any point during a waiver year, while also reserving capacity for people whose circumstances create serious immediate risk, abuse or neglect, or caregiver loss. Provider capacity can still affect a particular service; the DDDS provider manual directs providers at capacity to notify DDDS and permits provider waiting lists (DDDS Lifespan Waiver capacity policy; DDDS provider waiting-list policy).
Delaware home-care distinction: DSHP-Plus is mandatory MLTSS for older adults and people with physical disabilities; the separate DDDS Lifespan Waiver reports no statewide participant cap but recognizes provider-capacity waiting lists (
DMMA DSHP-Plus;
DDDS Lifespan Waiver).
For the broader funding discussion, see Medicaid (Baseline). A pre-admission screening and a current plan/provider conversation are the practical way to verify services and availability for a particular household.
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.
