Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: yes, through Consumer-Directed Attendant Support Services (CDASS), a service-delivery option under Community First Choice (CFC). Most adult family members can be hired and paid to provide the care. A spouse can also be the paid caregiver.
How Colorado pays a family caregiver
| Program | Consumer-Directed Attendant Support Services (CDASS), a service-delivery option under Community First Choice (CFC) |
|---|---|
| Can a family member be paid? | Yes. “Family Members/legal guardians may be employed by the client/AR to provide CDASS, subject to the conditions below.” |
| Can a spouse be paid? | Yes. “Family Member means any person related to the client by blood, marriage, adoption, or common law… A member of the client’s household may only be paid to furnish extraordinary care as determined by the Case Manager.” |
Why the spouse question is different
Federal Medicaid rule treats a spouse (and a parent paying for a minor child) as a “legally responsible relative”, someone already assumed to owe the care for free, so paying them is barred by default. A state has to build an explicit exception into its waiver or state-plan option to pay a spouse at all; the rule for any other relative (an adult child, a sibling, a grandchild) is looser and usually allowed. That is why the two rows above can carry different answers on the same page.
The going rate
$17.00/hour minimum (statewide base wage), $18.81/hour within Denver. “All impacted Direct Care Workers (DCWs)… are required to be paid at a minimum the $17.00 per hour base wage outside of Denver or $18.81 within Denver”
How it works
You must already be enrolled in Health First Colorado and meet Community First Choice (CFC) eligibility; your Case Management Agency (CMA) helps you choose CDASS as your service-delivery option, then a Financial Management Services (FMS) vendor handles payroll for the attendants you hire, including family members.
What this doesn’t answer
Colorado’s regulation includes a spouse (via “marriage”) in its definition of Family Member and does not categorically bar spouses, but caps a household member’s paid hours at “extraordinary care” exceeding what a family member would ordinarily do for free. The practical bar for a spouse living in the home is higher than for a non-cohabiting relative. Current wait-list length was not verified this session.
Sources
- HCPF: CDASS program page
- HCPF: 8.510 CDASS regulation (10 CCR 2505-10)
- HCPF Operational Memo 25-047: HCBS Base Wage 2025
Read September 3, 2026.
Same question, other states: Connecticut · Delaware.
Related: the private-pay caregiver-agreement rule · the household-employee tax rules once you’re being paid · what family caregiving actually costs unpaid.
General information drawn from each state’s own Medicaid agency and public program materials, not legal, tax or financial advice. Medicaid self-direction programs are administered state by state and change by budget cycle and waiver renewal; this page cannot see your own state’s current program status or your family’s eligibility. 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.