Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Louisiana, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $45.00/Month; the amount of their own income they keep for personal use each month, with the rest going to the facility as the patient-pay amount toward the cost of care. That is well above the $30/month federal floor set in 1988 and never raised since. The Louisiana Medicaid State Plan amendment LA-25-0013 (Attachment 2.6-A, page 4a) states the figure directly.
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Why Louisiana’s figure isn’t the federal floor
Federal Medicaid law requires only a $30-a-month personal needs allowance as a floor; a state is free to set its own, higher figure by statute, regulation, or agency policy. Louisiana has done exactly that, setting $45.00/Month under its approved Medicaid State Plan amendment LA-25-0013 (effective July 1, 2025; approved by CMS November 3, 2025). R.S. 40:2009.45 (effective June 11, 2025) directs LDH to set the allowance at not less than $50, but Section 2 of Act 259 makes that increase applicable only once an act with a specific appropriation for it takes effect.
What the allowance covers, and what it doesn’t
The personal needs allowance pays for the things a facility’s daily rate doesn’t cover: clothing, haircuts, snacks, a phone or television, small personal purchases. It is deducted before the rest of a resident’s income is applied to the facility bill as the patient-pay (or post-eligibility treatment of income, PETI) amount. It is not extra money on top of what Medicaid already pays the facility; it is the one slice of a resident’s own income that Medicaid rules guarantee the resident, not the facility, keeps.
One exception or caveat worth knowing
The $50 in R.S. 40:2009.45 is a statutory minimum that is not yet the plan amount: Louisiana Department of Health’s approved State Plan page (Attachment 2.6-A, page 4a) reads Personal Needs Allowance of not less than $45 for individuals and $90 for couples. The Act 259 Resume Digest on legis.la.gov states that prior law provided a personal needs allowance of $38 for individuals and $76 for couples.
| Citation | Louisiana Revised Statutes Section 40:2009.45 (Acts 2025, No. 259, Section 1) |
| What it says | “The Louisiana Department of Health shall set the monthly personal needs allowance for an institutionalized individual to an amount not less than fifty dollars and the monthly personal needs allowance for an institutionalized couple to an amount not less than one hundred dollars.” |
Figures verified against La. R.S. 40:2009.45 and Act 259 of 2025 (Louisiana Legislature), the Louisiana Medicaid State Plan amendment LA-25-0013 (Attachment 2.6-A, page 4a, approved November 3, 2025), and 42 U.S.C. 1396a(q); whether an appropriation has since triggered the $50 increase was not confirmed.
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 facility or state caseworker has the final say on any individual case.