Medicaid & Assisted Living in Arkansas: Yes

Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: yes, through Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver (LCAL). Medicaid does not pay the facility’s room and board either way; only the care and service component.

What Arkansas covers

Waiver / state plan option	Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver (LCAL)
Covers an assisted living setting?	Yes: “This home and community-based services waiver program permits Medicaid coverage of assisted living services as described in this manual.”
Room and board	Never covered by Medicaid, in Arkansas 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. Arkansas’s own materials confirm the same thing: Medicaid, by federal law, may not cover [clients’] room and board except in nursing and intermediate care facilities… Reimbursement is direct care for services only; room and board are to be paid by the client or his or her legal representative. (Arkansas DHS, Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver renewal filing (CMS 1915(c))).

The waitlist

unverified: mechanism confirmed (first-come, first-served up to an approved cap, then a waitlist), but no current 2026 count found : Entrance onto the Living Choices waiver program is on a first come, first-served basis, once individuals meet all medical and financial eligibility requirements. However, once the unduplicated number of participants is reached, a waiting list will be implemented for this program. (Arkansas DHS, Living Choices waiver application AR.0400.R04.07, effective July 1, 2024.)

What you get to keep: the personal needs allowance

Arkansas’s Living Choices waiver application (AR.0400.R04.07, effective July 1, 2024) protects up to 200% of the individual SSI federal benefit rate, made up of 90.8% of the rate for room and board and “9% of the SSI FBR, rounded up to the nearest dollar, for personal needs.” At the 2026 federal benefit rate of $994, that personal needs share works out to $90 a month (our arithmetic). 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 waiver’s approved cap is 1,725 unduplicated participants per waiver year per the current waiver application (AR.0400.R04.07, effective July 1, 2024), which is a multi-year filing, not a live enrollment dashboard, so no current (2026) waitlist headcount is reported. That application states the personal needs allowance as a formula (9% of the SSI federal benefit rate, rounded up) rather than a fixed dollar figure.

Figures verified against the Arkansas DHS Living Choices Assisted Living waiver application (AR.0400.R04.07, effective July 1, 2024), the Living Choices Packet and 2020 renewal filing cited below, and 42 U.S.C. §1396n(c)(1) on September 30, 2026; the current 2026 waitlist count was not available.

Sources

Read September 3, 2026.

Same question, other states: California · Georgia.

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.

Does Medicaid Pay for Assisted Living in Arkansas?