Medicaid 1915(c) Home and Community-Based Services Waivers Across the States

This article provides State-level data on the Medicaid 1915(c) home and community-based services (HCBS) waivers program. Medicaid 1915(c) waiver participants were 32 percent of the Medicaid participants in institutional care in 1997. These data document wide interstate variation in organizational oversight and program policies for the waivers. Many structural barriers to HCBS waiver growth existed. Case management services, in some form, were normative for most HCBS waiver participants, but formal mechanisms to assess client satisfaction and service quality were less common. Substantial new growth in this program may require fundamental changes in HCBS waiver policies.