Medicaid services are paid for with a combination of state and federal money. The Consumer Support Grant Program allows eligible consumers to convert the state portion of payments for specific home care services into a cash grant. The monthly cash grants replace fee-for-service home care services payments. With county assistance, consumers can manage and pay for a variety of home and community-based services.
The CSG program gives consumers greater flexibility and freedom of choice in service selection, payment rates, service delivery specifications and employment of service providers. Parents, spouses, family members, trusted neighbors or friends can be paid for service, as well as employees of traditional home care provider agencies.
Consumers may choose the participant employer option and act as the employer of their direct support workers. For more information, please see Participant Employer Options.
Eligibility
To be eligible, a person must meet all these criteria:
Be eligible to receive home care services from the Medical Assistance Home Care Program
Demonstrate limitations in everyday functioning, such as self-care, language, learning, mobility, self direction, capacity for independent living and economic self-sufficiency
Require ongoing supports to live in the community
Live in a natural home setting
Live in a county that offers the Consumer Support Grant program.
Grant amounts are based on home care assessments and ratings for home health aide, private duty nursing or personal care assistant services. Consumers can get an estimate of their grant from their county coordinator or the DHS Consumer Support Grant coordinator.
Consumers will work with their case manager to develop a service plan. The plan will identify the supports needed and a method for documenting payments for those supports.
The grant can be used to pay for a variety of supports beyond home health aide, private duty nursing and PCA services. Other services or items must be related to the consumer's functional limitation and be over and above the normal costs of caring for the person if they had no disability.
All other available sources of payment should be exhausted before use of the Consumer Support Grant. Grants may be distributed as cash, vouchers for services or direct payments to vendors. The administering agency determines the method and schedule for grant distribution.
Apply
Contact your local county agency or tribe to apply for the grant. Currently, not all counties offer the Consumer Support Grant.
