KFF Brief: A Look at Waiting lists for Home and Community-Based Services from 2016 to 2021

Even though HCBS waiting lists are an imperfect measure of unmet need, they remain the most widely used measure of this variable throughout the nation.  Therefore, waiting lists continue to be a source of concern to policymakers and proposals to eliminate them have been put forth by lawmakers. This data note from KFF provides new information about waiting lists from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS programs, highlighting why waiting lists are an incomplete measure of unmet need and why they may not be comparable across states or over time. KFF also recently provided new waiting list indicators on State Health Facts to help people better understand who is on waiting lists and what those waiting lists mean.

FMI see the Brief at THIS LINK