Updated September 17, 2026. Quick answer: In Colorado, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $110.36/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. Colorado HCPF Operational Memo OM 25-073, “2026 Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments,” Nursing Facility Personal Needs Allowance table states the figure directly.
Why Colorado’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. Colorado has done exactly that, setting $110.36/Month, effective January 1, 2026.
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 underlying codified rule (10 CCR 2505-10, part of the state’s Medical Assistance eligibility rules) only fixes an older base figure and directs an annual COLA adjustment; this HCPF operational memo is the document that states the current, operative dollar figure each year. A separate, higher PNA range governs certain HCBS residential settings (alternative care facilities, supportive living programs, and group and individual residential services) under HCPF Informational Memo IM 25-030: a minimum of $184.00 and a maximum of $435.46 per month effective January 1, 2026. That is not the nursing-facility figure reported here.
| Federal personal needs allowance floor | $30.00/month |
| Colorado’s personal needs allowance | $110.36/Month |
| How far above the federal floor (calculated by comparing this state’s own figure to the $30.00 federal floor) | 268% higher |
| State citation | Colorado HCPF Operational Memo OM 25-073, “2026 Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments,” Nursing Facility Personal Needs Allowance table |
| What it says | “Nursing and Intermediate Care Facility Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) 2025 PNA Base Amount Adjustment Percent 2026 PNA $108.73 3% $110.36” |
| Second state citation | Colorado Revised Statutes Title 25.5 (Health Care Policy and Financing), the enabling statute for HCPF’s Medicaid rules |
| Federal floor citation | 42 CFR § 435.725 (the federal $30.00/month personal needs allowance floor) |
Figures verified against Colorado HCPF Operational Memo OM 25-073, 42 U.S.C. 1396a(q) and 42 CFR 435.725 on September 30, 2026; the description of 10 CCR 2505-10 and the C.R.S. Title 25.5 citation were not re-checked.
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.