Virginia Medicaid Long-Term Care

Virginia Medicaid uses its own terminology for this whole area: Long-Term Services and Supports, or LTSS, covering Medicaid-paid care delivered either in a nursing facility or in a community setting. DMAS policy explains that LTSS is meant for people whose physical or mental condition requires nursing supervision plus help with activities of daily living, and that a screening or authorization step is required to determine both the level of care and whether Medicaid will actually cover the service — income and resources are assessed separately (Cover Virginia LTSS overview).

DMAS runs Virginia's Medicaid program, and its consumer materials are careful to separate the financial application from the clinical authorization process. Someone seeking nursing-facility care needs a pre-admission screening; someone seeking community-based care has to be screened and approved for the relevant waiver. The local Department of Social Services is usually the central point of contact for both the application and the screening, though a hospital discharge planner can sometimes handle the screening for an inpatient (Virginia LTSS fact sheet; DMAS CCC Plus Waiver).