South Carolina Home Care Medicaid

For people who'd rather avoid a nursing facility, South Carolina's Community Choices Waiver is the main home- and community-based option. SCDHHS says it serves frail adults 65 and older along with adults 18 through 64 who have physical disabilities, provided they meet the same nursing-facility level-of-care standard used for institutional placement. The waiver runs through Community Long Term Care rather than functioning as a generic private-pay home-care program.

Community Choices sits within a wider network of state waivers. SCDHHS itself administers Community Choices alongside the HIV/AIDS, Mechanical Ventilator Dependent, and Medically Complex Children waivers, while a separate agency — the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities — runs the HASCI, Intellectual Disability/Related Disabilities, and Community Supports waivers. Since eligibility rules and waitlist procedures can differ from program to program, getting the right name and agency matters.