Arkansas Medicaid Penalty Divisor: $9,110 a Month, and It Is a Medicaid Rate, Not a Private-Pay One

Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Arkansas publishes a MONTHLY divisor and it is $9,110.00 for transfers assessed from April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2027, up from $8,834.00 the year before. The unusual part is what the number is made of. Almost every state divides by an average private-pay charge; Arkansas divides by its own Medicaid weighted average per diem rate multiplied by 30.42. That is the rate the program pays facilities, not the rate a private resident is billed, and it is generally the lower of the two — a lower divisor produces a LONGER penalty for the same gift.

What Arkansas publishes

How the penalty period is calculated

• Arkansas’s rule lives in the Medical Services (MS) Policy Manual, and every “MS” citation below is to that manual. MS H-310 states the division: the number of months of ineligibility is the uncompensated value of everything transferred in the look-back divided by the current divisor in Appendix R.
• The remainder is not forgiven. MS H-310 continues: “Any fraction remaining after dividing the total uncompensated value by the divisor will not be dropped. The remaining fraction will be multiplied by 30 (days) and the resulting number will be rounded up.” So a gift that divides to 4.2 months produces four months plus six days, not four months.
• MS H-316 defines the divisor itself as “the weighted average per diem Medicaid rate multiplied by 30.42 and rounded to the nearest dollar.” Medicaid nursing facility resident days on each facility’s cost report are multiplied by that facility’s per diem rate, the products are summed, and the sum is divided by total resident days.
• The divisor is not frozen once a penalty is imposed. MS H-316 provides that when the divisor changes, “the penalty period will be reassessed at the next reevaluation, or earlier if requested, or at reapplication.” A rising divisor can therefore shorten a penalty already running — an unusual and genuinely favourable rule.
• The penalty period begins on the first day of the month of the transfer or the date the person is otherwise eligible for Medicaid, whichever is later.
• One trap that is easy to miss: the same divisor governs income trusts. MS H-114 provides that if a Miller trust’s month-end balance exceeds the current transfer-of-resources divisor, the person is not eligible again for facility payment until the month after the balance is spent down for the resident’s benefit.

Once you have the figure above, the Medicaid penalty period calculator does the arithmetic. This page is the Arkansas rate record; the calculator is the class parent.

What this page does not settle

• This page does not tell you whether a particular transfer is penalised at all. Arkansas recognises rebuttal of the presumption that resources were transferred to establish eligibility (MS H-312) and lists factors indicating transfer exclusively for another purpose (MS H-313); both are evidentiary questions decided on a specific file.
• The $9,110.00 figure is the divisor Arkansas applies statewide. It is NOT an estimate of what a nursing home in Arkansas charges a private resident, and it should not be read as one — it is derived from Medicaid payment rates, which are lower.
• Appendix R is republished as a whole document rather than versioned per figure, so the April 1, 2027 divisor will replace this one in the same file. The figure on this page is the one the appendix carried when it was read.
• Arkansas apportions a penalty between spouses (MS H-314) and continues it without interruption until expiration (MS H-315). A break in institutional status does not reset or erase it.
• Nothing here covers hardship waivers, annuity treatment, or the separate home-equity bar, each of which can decide a case on its own.

Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by this one number. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should transfer, retitle or give away property on the strength of a worksheet.

Sources

• Arkansas DHS, Medical Services Appendices — Appendix R, Transfer of Assets Divisor, Home Equity Limit, and Gift Tax Exclusion for ABLE Accounts (appendix dated 04/01/2026)
• Arkansas DHS, Medical Services Policy Manual — Section H, Long Term Services and Supports, including H-302, H-310 and H-316
• Arkansas DHS, Division of County Operations — Division Policies, the index both manuals are published from

Each source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every figure on this page was checked against those bytes.