Dementia Care Resources in Colorado: Programs, Agencies, and Where to Start

Colorado's Dementia Care System Is Split Across Three Agencies

When you first start looking for dementia care help in Colorado, you'll run into a fragmented system where different agencies control different pieces. Understanding which agency does what saves you from spending hours on hold with the wrong department.

HCPF (Department of Health Care Policy and Financing) runs Health First Colorado — the state's Medicaid program. They control the Elderly, Blind, and Disabled (EBD) waiver that funds home and community-based care, the Community First Choice program for personal care services, and Medicaid eligibility rules. If your question involves paying for care through Medicaid, HCPF is where the policy lives.

CDPHE (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) licenses and inspects all Assisted Living Residences, including memory care units. They enforce SB22-079's dementia training mandate, conduct unannounced facility inspections, and maintain the regulatory standards that memory care communities must meet. If your question involves whether a facility is properly licensed or what care standards they must follow, CDPHE is the authority.

Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) and ADRCs provide local information, referral services, and some direct programs like the National Family Caregiver Support Program. They operate at the regional level and can connect you with respite care, support groups, and caregiver training programs.

The Case Management Redesign Changed Everything

Colorado overhauled its long-term care entry system in recent years. The old network of Single Entry Points (SEPs) and Community Centered Boards (CCBs) has been replaced by 20 regional Case Management Agencies (CMAs). If you're searching with old information — outdated brochures, pre-redesign websites — you'll hit disconnected phone numbers and dead-end referrals.

Your CMA is the starting point for accessing publicly funded services. They handle:

• Initial intake and triage — screening for immediate health risks and waiver eligibility
• Level of Care assessments using the Colorado Single Assessment (CSA) tool to determine if your parent meets nursing facility level of care
• Person-Centered Support Plan development — mapping out personal care hours, home modifications, respite care, and other services

The CMA assigned to your family depends on your parent's county of residence, not yours. If you live in Denver but your parent is in Pueblo, you contact the Pueblo-area CMA (The Resource Exchange, 719-380-1100), not the Denver-area one.

Here are the CMAs for Colorado's highest-population areas:

Programs Worth Knowing About

Community First Choice (CFC) launched July 1, 2025 and is migrating standard personal care and homemaker services from the EBD waiver into the Medicaid state plan. Current EBD waiver participants are transitioning to CFC during their scheduled annual reviews. CFC supports self-directed care through CDASS (where your family manages caregivers directly) and IHSS (where an agency acts as employer of record).

The EBD Waiver remains the primary mechanism for funding community-based memory care. It covers care services in certified Alternative Care Facilities, adult day programs, and respite. Standard personal care and homemaker services are now delivered through the Community First Choice state plan. Financial eligibility requires income below $2,982/month and countable assets at or below $2,000 for an individual.

Colorado's Senior Alert Program (the state's version of Silver Alert) is administered by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for missing seniors with documented cognitive impairment. Activation requires local law enforcement confirmation that the person is a Colorado resident who is 60 or older, has a verified mental impairment, is in immediate danger after a local investigation rules out alternative explanations, and that the disappearance is unexplained, involuntary, or suspicious. The family or caregiver must provide written medical documentation, and law enforcement also needs descriptive information, a recent photograph, and an NCIC entry.

The Colorado Respite Coalition (run through Easterseals Colorado) coordinates respite services for family caregivers, including short-term relief care, volunteer companion programs, and connections to funded respite through the EBD waiver and the National Family Caregiver Support Program.

Where Families Get Stuck

The most common friction points aren't about finding information — it's about finding the right information for your specific situation and knowing what order to do things in.

Families frequently discover too late that their parent needed a financial power of attorney signed while they still had cognitive capacity. Without one, you're looking at a court-ordered guardianship that costs $5,000 or more instead of the $200–$500 a proactive POA would have cost.

The CCM database transition (the new Care and Case Management platform that replaced the old BUS and DDDWeb systems) has caused intermittent processing delays — missing historical records, delayed Prior Authorization Requests, stalled support plans. If your parent experiences an interruption in care linked to a system issue, contact your CMA's transition or escalation team directly rather than waiting for it to resolve.

The Colorado Dementia & Memory Care Guide puts all of these agencies, programs, and workflows into a single step-by-step action plan — with a CMA intake tracker, Medicaid eligibility worksheet, and facility tour audit checklist so you can move through the system without backtracking.

See more Colorado guides →