Mississippi Medicaid Long-Term Care
How the Mississippi Division of Medicaid administers nursing-facility coverage and five HCBS waiver areas.
Mississippi Medicaid is the long-term-care program
Mississippi’s long-term-care coverage is administered by the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, usually called DOM. DOM’s 2026 eligibility guide addresses aged, blind, or disabled people who reside in a nursing facility or participate in a Home and Community Based Services waiver; the guide identifies Medicaid as the coverage program rather than a separately branded state plan (DOM 2026 nursing-facility and HCBS guide).
The entry point is need for long-term care as well as financial eligibility. DOM explains that a person in a nursing home or hospital is treated as needing long-term care when the stay will last 31 consecutive days or longer; for an HCBS participant, the stated expectation is a need for waiver services for 31 days or longer. The attending physician must certify medical necessity of the placement (DOM nursing-home and HCBS eligibility page).
Eligibility also requires Mississippi residence, a qualifying citizenship or immigration status, and age 65 or older, blindness, or disability according to DOM’s current consumer guide. The guide says applicants must seek and accept benefits to which they may be entitled, naming VA, retirement, and disability benefits; that duty matters when a family is assembling income information for a Medicaid application (DOM 2026 nursing-facility and HCBS guide).
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