Arkansas Medicaid Long-Term Care

Arkansas Medicaid is the umbrella program, administered by the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS), and it's DHS's dedicated LTSS unit that actually determines eligibility for long-term services and supports. Under that umbrella, DHS lists several distinct pathways: Nursing Facility Medicaid, ARChoices in Homecare, Living Choices assisted living, PACE, and the DDS waiver programs for people with developmental disabilities.

DHS's 2026 reference chart groups Nursing Facility, Assisted Living, ARChoices, and the DDS Waiver together as full-benefit categories, but getting into one of them takes more than a diagnosis or a hospital admission. The chart lays out financial eligibility, functional need, categorical eligibility, institutional status, cost-effectiveness, and a level-of-care assessment as the relevant factors — all of which have to line up before eligibility is actually established.