---
title: "Colorado Medicaid Long-Term Care: Health First Colorado"
url: https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/colorado/medicaid-long-term-care/
description: "How Health First Colorado (HCPF) covers nursing facility care, HCBS waivers and PACE, how level of care is assessed, and where income trusts fit in."
last_updated: 2026-10-20
author: George A. Mellendorf, CLTC, LTCP (Central States Insurance Services, Inc.)
publisher: Funding LTC Marketplace
note: Educational content; not legal, tax or financial advice. Markdown copy of the HTML page at the URL above.
---
Colorado · Medicaid Program

# Colorado Medicaid Long-Term Care

Last updated 2026-10-20

Health First Colorado is the state's Medicaid program, run by the Department of Health Care Policy & Financing — universally known as HCPF. HCPF groups nursing-facility care, home-and-community services, and disability supports under one umbrella it calls Long-Term Services and Supports, or LTSS. Families often see all four labels — Medicaid, Health First Colorado, LTSS, HCBS — attached to the same underlying case, which can make the paperwork feel more fragmented than the system actually is.

Within LTSS, Colorado offers nursing-facility services, HCBS waivers, and the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). HCPF's income-trust instructions specifically name institutional care, HCBS, and PACE as the three long-term-care settings its income-trust framework can support for establishing and keeping income eligibility. The care setting determines the service route, but a financial review can still be required no matter which of the three a person ends up in.

## Sources and official resources

- [Colorado HCPF: Long-Term Services and Supports](https://hcpf.colorado.gov/long-term-services-and-supports-programs)
- [CMS: 2026 SSI and Spousal Impoverishment Standards](https://www.medicaid.gov/federal-policy-guidance/downloads/cib04272026.pdf)

Rules and figures change. Confirm current details with the agency before you act.

[← Back to the full Colorado guide](https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/colorado/)