Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: Yes. Arkansas participates in the federal Long-Term Care Partnership Program, using a dollar-for-dollar asset-protection model, under 054.00.08 Ark. Code R. 003, Rule 94, Arkansas Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership Program, effective July 1, 2008.
How the asset protection works
Arkansas uses a dollar-for-dollar asset-protection model: an amount of Medicaid-countable assets equal to what a qualified Partnership policy actually paid out is protected (disregarded) both when applying for Medicaid and later in Medicaid estate recovery. 054.00.08 Ark. Code R. 003, Rule 94, Arkansas Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership Program, effective July 1, 2008 is the governing citation.
What the state itself says about moving
Arkansas’s own program materials address this directly, describing it this way: If you move to a state that does not maintain a Partnership Program or does not recognize your policy as a Partnership Policy, you would not receive beneficial treatment of your policy under the Medicaid program of that state.
Which policies qualify
Arkansas’s own materials tie the program to policies issued on or after 2008 (or the date its state plan amendment took effect that year). A long-term care policy bought before that cutoff is not automatically Partnership-qualified in Arkansas even if it otherwise looks similar; the policy’s own rider or outline of coverage should say “Partnership” or “Qualified State Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership” explicitly.
Estate recovery, not just eligibility
The federal rule requires the same protected amount to be disregarded twice: once when Arkansas decides Medicaid eligibility, and again later if Arkansas pursues Medicaid estate recovery against the person’s estate. A Partnership-qualified policy is doing two jobs, not one; see how estate recovery itself works in Arkansas.
A note on sourcing: sos.arkansas.gov PDF returned unreadable binary; text reconstructed from Cornell LII’s reproduction of the same rule. This session’s own archived copy of the Arkansas Register PDF (sos.arkansas.gov) did not yield extractable text confirming this exact sentence; the sentence traces to Cornell LII’s mirror of the same rule, not a direct read of the archived file, so no verbatim quote is republished here.
| Federal Partnership framework itself | 20 years old (in place since February 8, 2006) |
| Federal inflation-protection buyer-age brackets | compound protection required under age 61; some protection required age 61 to age 76 |
| Arkansas’s own cutoff (since 2008) | 18 years old |
| This state’s core mechanism | protects $1 of assets for every $1 the policy pays out |
| State citation | 054.00.08 Ark. Code R. 003, Rule 94, Arkansas Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership Program, effective July 1, 2008 |
| Federal authority | 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b), Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 |
| Participates | Yes |
| Confidence | Medium |
For the federal rules behind this state page, see how Partnership reciprocity works when you move states and why inflation protection is a condition of staying Partnership-qualified.
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Insurance Department, Medicaid agency, statute, or administrative code this session (or, where that site could not be reached, from an independently cross-checked legal-database mirror of the same codified text, disclosed below). General information, not insurance, legal, or tax advice on any specific policy or application; program rules and reciprocity agreements can change, and your state’s Insurance Department or Medicaid agency has the final say.