Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Utah’s own official long-term-care figures table lists a $2,982-a-month, 300%-of-SSI income line for its HCBS waiver programs, but no corresponding income-ceiling entry for plain nursing-facility (“Institutional Long Term Stay”) Medicaid at all, only a $45 personal needs allowance. That structure is consistent with the commonly repeated claim that Utah applies no hard income cap to straight nursing-home Medicaid, with income above the personal-needs allowance instead going toward the cost of care.
The same question in other states: Medicaid Nursing Home Income Limit in Massachusetts, Medicaid Nursing Home Income Limit in Michigan and Medicaid Nursing Home Income Limit in North Carolina.
What Utah’s own table shows, line by line
Utah’s Office of Eligibility Policy publishes Table II-A, Long Term Care Institutional and Waiver Income Limits and Other Important Figures, effective July 1, 2026. It lists, for its Physical Disabilities Waiver: “Physical Disabilities Waiver Income Eligibility Limit: 300% SSI rate $2,982 Changes each January,” a plain income-cap line for that specific waiver program. For plain institutional nursing-home stays, the same table’s relevant entry is the “Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) Institutional Long Term Stay $45,” with no separate income-ceiling figure listed for that category.
What this session could and could not confirm
This session read Utah’s own table directly and confirmed both figures above are real, current entries. It did not find a sentence in Utah’s own materials stating outright, in so many words, “nursing facility Medicaid has no income limit”; that specific framing, while widely repeated by secondary sources and consistent with the absence of a ceiling line in Utah’s own table, is corroborated rather than directly quoted here.
Figures verified against Utah DHHS Medicaid Policy Manual Table II-A (effective July 1, 2026); the claim that Utah applies no income cap to nursing-facility Medicaid was not re-checked in any Utah policy chapter or state plan on September 30, 2026.
| Citation | Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Table II-A, Long Term Care Figures |
| What it says | “Physical Disabilities Waiver Income Eligibility Limit: 300% SSI rate $2,982 Changes each January … Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) Institutional Long Term Stay $45” |
This page covers the income eligibility figure itself. How a state handles income above that figure (a Qualified Income Trust, a medically needy spend-down, or something else) is covered on Utah’s excess income mechanism page.
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Medicaid agency, administrative code, or official eligibility manual this session. General information, not legal or financial advice; a figure this specific can change with a budget cycle or a rule amendment, and a county or state caseworker has the final say on any individual application.