Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: yes, through Community Choices Waiver (CCW), Participant-Direction option. Most adult family members can be hired and paid to provide the care. A spouse can also be the paid caregiver.
How Wyoming pays a family caregiver
| Program | Community Choices Waiver (CCW), Participant-Direction option |
|---|---|
| Can a family member be paid? | Yes. “Any person over age 18 who has passed required background screenings and can provide the services you need as outlined in your person-centered service plan.” |
| Can a spouse be paid? | Yes. “You may be able to hire your spouse if they are not legally authorized to make financial decisions on your behalf, and if your circumstances make it necessary.” |
Why the spouse question is different
Federal Medicaid rule treats a spouse (and a parent paying for a minor child) as a “legally responsible relative”, someone already assumed to owe the care for free, so paying them is barred by default. A state has to build an explicit exception into its waiver or state-plan option to pay a spouse at all; the rule for any other relative (an adult child, a sibling, a grandchild) is looser and usually allowed. That is why the two rows above can carry different answers on the same page.
The going rate
Not published by the state in the materials reviewed this session.
How it works
Wyoming’s Community Choices Waiver offers a Participant-Direction (self-direction) option under which the participant, or their designated Employer of Record if they cannot manage employer duties themselves, hires, trains, and can terminate a Direct Service Worker, generally any qualified adult who passes background screening, including most relatives; a spouse can be hired specifically only if the spouse does not also hold legal or financial decision-making authority (power of attorney, guardian) for the participant and the arrangement is documented as necessary.
What this doesn’t answer
No current Community Choices Waiver hourly wage rate for Direct Service Workers could be located this session; the only rate document found (a 2020 CCW Provider Rate Study Report) was not confirmed as still current.
Sources
Read September 4, 2026.
Same question, other states: District of Columbia · Nebraska.
Related: the private-pay caregiver-agreement rule · the household-employee tax rules once you’re being paid · what family caregiving actually costs unpaid.
General information drawn from each state’s own Medicaid agency and public program materials, not legal, tax or financial advice. Medicaid self-direction programs are administered state by state and change by budget cycle and waiver renewal; this page cannot see your own state’s current program status or your family’s eligibility. 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.