Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: no. West Virginia’s Medicaid program does not currently pay for services delivered inside an assisted living / residential care setting; its HCBS waiver dollars go to other settings instead.
What West Virginia covers
| Waiver / state plan option | Aged and Disabled Waiver (ADW): 1915(c) waiver |
|---|---|
| Covers an assisted living setting? | No: “ADW services may not be provided in assisted living residences or in group residential facilities. Qualified residences for ADW recipients, including ADW TMH members, is defined as: A person’s own home. A person’s family’s home; or A person’s own apartment” |
| Room and board | Never covered by Medicaid, in West Virginia or any state; see below. |
The room-and-board split
Federal law is the floor every state builds on: “The Secretary may by waiver provide that a State plan approved under this subchapter may include as “medical assistance” under such plan payment for part or all of the cost of home or community-based services (other than room and board) approved by the Secretary” (42 U.S.C. §1396n(c)(1), Social Security Act §1915(c)). The words in parentheses do the work: whatever a state’s waiver pays for inside an assisted living community, it is not the rent, the meals, or the room itself. That portion stays the resident’s own to fund, out of income, savings, or a family contribution; the waiver only ever reaches the care and service layer on top of it. We did not find West Virginia’s own materials restating this point in the sources read this session; the federal rule above still governs.
The waitlist
Not published by the state in the materials reviewed this session.
What you get to keep: the personal needs allowance
Not published in the materials reviewed this session. This is the amount of a waiver participant’s own income the state lets them keep for personal spending after the rest goes toward the cost of their care; it varies by state because each state sets its own figure inside the federal floor.
What this doesn’t answer
The coverage verdict is a clean No: Chapter 501 explicitly bars ADW services in assisted living residences and defines a qualified residence as the member’s own home, family’s home, or own apartment. Because ADW does not reach assisted living at all, the room-and-board question is moot and left blank rather than guessed. The manual confirms a waitlist mechanism exists (the Managed Enrollment List) but does not state current open/closed status or capacity with a date, and no personal needs allowance dollar figure was found in the chapter, so both are marked unverified.
Sources
Read September 4, 2026.
Same question, other states: Wisconsin · Wyoming.
Related: what assisted living actually costs · assisted living vs. staying home vs. a CCRC · why home care has a waitlist and a nursing home doesn’t.
General information drawn from each state’s own Medicaid agency and federal statute, not legal, tax or financial advice. Medicaid is administered state by state; waiver names, coverage decisions, waitlists and allowance amounts change by state budget and legislative action. This page cannot see your own state’s current caseload. We are not a law firm, a benefits counselor, or a fiduciary, and this is not personalized advice. We sell nothing on this page and earn nothing from it.