KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
KFF regularly administers the Medicaid HCBS survey of states about their home- and community-based services programs. The survey is sent to officials administering Medicaid HCBS programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey is sent to each state official responsible for overseeing the administration of HCBS programs (including home health, personal care, and waiver services).
Before 2015, KFF and researchers at University of California San Francisco conducted the survey. Starting in 2016, KFF and Watts Health Policy Consulting have conducted the annual survey. Not all years’ surveys are available because the survey was not administered in some years and in other years, KFF replaced earlier reports with the most recent data.
Reports for some prior years are no longer on our website, but may be requested via KFF’s Contact Us form. To view more surveys administered by KFF's Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured, visit this page.
This page holds an archive of KFF's regular surveys of states about their Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs and their eligibility policies for people who are eligible for Medicaid on the basis of having a disability or being ages 65 and older (the “non-MAGI” eligibility pathways).
This issue brief provides information about some of the services Medicaid provides in assisted living facilities from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS home care programs.
This issue brief provides an overview of what Medicaid home care (also known as “home- and community-based services” or HCBS) is, who is covered, and what services were available in 2024.
This issue brief describes states’ ongoing efforts to respond to shortages of home care workers and how they pay these workers, finding that increased payment rates are a key component of states’ efforts to address workforce shortages.
This issue brief provides new information about family caregivers from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS programs, including a discussion of paying family caregivers, self-direction, and supports available for family caregivers.
This data note provides new information about waiting lists for Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services, including a discussion of why waiting lists are an incomplete measure of unmet need and why they are not necessarily comparable across states or over time.
In January 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule that created new requirements for Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs. This issue brief describes the settings rule, implementation of the rule across states and HCBS waivers, and what to watch as implementation continues.
This data note provides new information about waiting lists from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS programs, including a discussion of why waiting lists are an incomplete measure of unmet need and why they are not necessarily comparable across states or over time.
In a new analysis of survey data from state Medicaid home care programs, KFF found that in most years since 2016, there have been nearly 700,000 people on waiting or interest lists for expanded home and community-based services (HCBS), with a total of 692,000 across 38 states in 2023 and waiting lists averaging three years.
In response to long-standing workforce challenges in home- and community-based services, states have reported increasing Medicaid payment rates, providing more education and training or leveraging other strategies to recruit and retain workers.