Money Follows the Person Arkansas: How to Transition from a Nursing Home Back Home

Your parent went into a nursing home after a fall or hospital stay, and what was supposed to be temporary has stretched into months. They want to come home. You want to bring them home. But you assumed the Medicaid funding was locked to the facility — that it couldn't follow them back to the community.

It can. Arkansas participates in the federal Money Follows the Person (MFP) program, which helps Medicaid-eligible individuals transition out of nursing homes and other institutional settings back into community-based living arrangements.

What Money Follows the Person Actually Does

MFP is a federal demonstration program that provides enhanced federal matching funds to states that help residents move from institutional settings (nursing homes, intermediate care facilities) into community-based alternatives. In practical terms, it means the Medicaid dollars your parent has been using to pay for nursing home care can be redirected to fund home and community-based services instead.

Arkansas reserves approximately 100 ARChoices waiver slots specifically for MFP transitions. This is significant because the ARChoices waiver has enrollment caps and a waitlist — MFP participants bypass the standard waitlist and receive priority placement.

The program targets individuals who have been institutionalized for at least 90 consecutive days and who can safely transition to a community setting with appropriate supports.

Who Qualifies for MFP in Arkansas

To be eligible, the nursing home resident must meet these criteria:

• Medicaid-enrolled — they must currently be receiving Medicaid-funded institutional care
• 90-day institutional stay — they must have resided in the nursing facility for at least 90 consecutive days (this confirms they meet the institutional threshold the program targets)
• Community-viable — a clinical determination that, with appropriate home and community-based supports, they can live safely outside the institution
• Willing to transition — the decision must be voluntary; the resident wants to return to a community setting

The community setting can be the family home, an apartment, a group home, or a Level II Assisted Living Facility — but it cannot be another institution.

How the Transition Process Works

Step 1: Initiate the conversation. Contact the nursing home's social worker or discharge planner and express the resident's interest in returning to a community setting. They are required to inform residents about community-based alternatives under federal nursing home reform rules.

Step 2: Connect with the transition coordinator. The DHS Division of Aging, Adult, and Behavioral Health Services (DAABHS) coordinates MFP transitions. You can also reach the Choices in Living Resource Center at 1-866-801-3435, which serves as the state's Aging and Disability Resource Center.

Step 3: Clinical reassessment. Optum State Government Solutions conducts a new ARIA assessment (or reviews the existing one) to determine the appropriate level of community-based services. Because the resident is already Medicaid-enrolled and has been in a nursing facility, the functional eligibility hurdle is generally already cleared.

Step 4: Develop the transition plan. A transition coordinator works with the family to develop a Person-Centered Service Plan for community living. This includes identifying housing, setting up attendant care, arranging environmental modifications (grab bars, ramp installation), ordering PERS equipment, and scheduling home-delivered meals.

Step 5: Execute the move. MFP often provides one-time transition assistance for expenses like security deposits, utility setup fees, and essential household items that make the new living arrangement viable.

What Services Are Available After the Transition

Once the resident transitions under MFP, they receive the full range of ARChoices waiver services:

• Attendant care (help with bathing, dressing, transferring, meal preparation)
• Adult day services
• In-home and facility-based respite care
• Home-delivered meals
• Personal Emergency Response Systems
• Environmental modifications
• Non-medical transportation

The critical advantage: these services start immediately upon transition because the waiver slot is reserved through MFP's priority allocation. There's no gap in care between leaving the nursing home and receiving community supports.

Why Families Don't Know About MFP

The biggest barrier isn't eligibility — it's awareness. Many families assume that once a parent enters a nursing home on Medicaid, the institutional placement is permanent. Nursing facilities, understandably, don't always proactively promote the option to leave.

Hospital discharge planners often default to nursing home placements because they're faster to arrange than community-based care plans. By the time the family realizes home care was possible, months have passed and they've stopped looking for alternatives.

If your parent has been in an Arkansas nursing home for 90 or more days, is Medicaid-enrolled, and wants to come home, MFP is specifically designed for that exact situation.

The Arkansas Home Care Navigation Guide covers the full transition process — from initiating the conversation with the nursing home social worker through setting up community-based care under the ARChoices waiver — including the ARIA assessment preparation and financial structuring that MFP transitions require.

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