Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: yes, through Turquoise Care Community Benefit, Agency-Based Community Benefit (ABCB). Medicaid does not pay the facility’s room and board either way; only the care and service component.
What New Mexico covers
| Waiver / state plan option | Turquoise Care Community Benefit, Agency-Based Community Benefit (ABCB) |
|---|---|
| Covers an assisted living setting? | Yes: “Assisted living is a residential service that provides a homelike environment, which may be in a group setting, with individualized services designed to respond to the member’s needs as identified and incorporated in the care plan.” |
| Room and board | Never covered by Medicaid, in New Mexico 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. New Mexico’s own materials say the same thing directly: “Coverage does not include 24-hour skilled care or supervision or the cost of room or board.” (NMAC 8.308.12.13(B)(2): Covered Services in Agency Based Community Benefit (ABCB): Assisted Living).
The waitlist
There is currently a registry for this program, and slots are available based on need. : “There is currently a registry for this program, and slots are available based on need.”
What you get to keep: the personal needs allowance
Not published in the materials reviewed this session. 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
Assisted living coverage, the room-and-board exclusion, and the registry/slots language all come directly from New Mexico’s own rule text and HSD/HCA materials, so those are solid. The waitlist status is a standing ‘registry with slots based on need’ mechanism rather than a simple open/closed flag, and neither hsd.state.nm.us nor hca.nm.gov dated that statement, so no as-of date could be verified. The personal needs allowance is unverified for this setting: NMAC 8.281.500.22(B) discusses a PNA for nursing-facility institutional care and cross-references a section that does not itself state a dollar figure in the current rule text, and none of the Community Benefit brochures or FAQs opened this session state a PNA or income-retention amount for Agency-Based Community Benefit assisted living recipients, who are not classified as ‘institutionalized’ under this rule.
Sources
- NMAC 8.308.12: Managed Care Program, Part 12: Community Benefit (New Mexico Human Services Department)
- “What is the Turquoise Care Community Benefit?”: NM Human Services Department, MAD 792, Revised 7/01/2025
- Agency-Based Community Benefit (ABCB) Program Provider Enrollment FAQs, LTSSB, April 2022
- Community Benefit Program: New Mexico Health Care Authority
- NMAC 8.281.500: Medicaid Eligibility, Institutional Care (Categories 081, 083, 084): Income and Resource Standards
Read September 4, 2026.
Same question, other states: New York · North Carolina.
Related: what assisted living actually costs · assisted living vs. staying home vs. a CCRC · why home care has a waitlist and a nursing home doesn’t.
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.
Related: New Mexico’s Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance; the amount a nursing-facility resident keeps from their own income each month.