Georgia NOW Waiver: Eligibility, Application, and the Planning List Reality

What the NOW Waiver Funds

The New Options Waiver is one of two Medicaid home and community-based services waivers administered by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. It funds supports that allow individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live in their own homes or family homes rather than in institutional settings.

NOW covers community living support, day services, prevocational training, supported employment, respite care, specialized medical equipment, environmental modifications to the home, and transportation services. It is designed for individuals whose needs can be met through periodic support rather than round-the-clock residential care — that level of intensity falls under the COMP waiver instead.

Who Is Eligible for the Georgia NOW Waiver

Three criteria must all be met:

Clinical eligibility. The individual must have a documented intellectual or developmental disability with an onset during the developmental period — before age 18 for intellectual disability, or before age 22 for related conditions such as autism spectrum disorder. DBHDD's regional staff evaluate the diagnostic records to confirm the individual meets an Intermediate Care Facility for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ICF/IID) level of care.

Financial eligibility. The individual's own income must fall below the 2026 Medicaid Cap of $2,982 per month (300% of the federal SSI benefit rate). A critical detail: parental income is not counted, even if the individual lives at home. This means a young adult who qualifies clinically can pass the financial test based solely on their own SSI payment or earnings, regardless of what their parents earn.

Medicaid enrollment. The individual must have active Medicaid coverage. In Georgia, SSI recipients receive Medicaid automatically through the Section 1634 agreement. Individuals not on SSI must apply for Aged, Blind, and Disabled Medicaid through the Georgia Gateway portal or their local DFCS office.

How to Apply for the Georgia NOW Waiver

The application process runs through DBHDD, not DFCS. Here is the sequence:

1. Create an account on the IDD Connects portal through the Georgia Collaborative ASO website
2. Upload the required documentation: psychological evaluations, adaptive behavior assessments, proof of U.S. citizenship, and school records including the most recent IEP
3. DBHDD's regional field office schedules an initial pre-eligibility screening within 14 business days of receiving the application
4. If the individual is found clinically pre-eligible, they are placed on the NOW/COMP Planning List

Georgia has six DBHDD regional field offices that handle intake. Your regional office is determined by your county of residence — Region 1 in Cumming covers North Georgia, Region 3 in Decatur covers Metro Atlanta, and the remaining offices serve East, Southwest, Southeast, and West Central Georgia.

The Planning List: What You're Actually Waiting For

This is where families get blindsided. Being placed on the Planning List does not mean you are enrolled in waiver services. It does not mean services are coming soon. It means DBHDD has confirmed clinical pre-eligibility and registered the individual for a future waiver slot.

As of late 2025, approximately 7,900 Georgians were on the combined NOW/COMP Planning List. Among adults on the list, 43% had been waiting at least six years.

The Planning List is not a first-come-first-served queue. DBHDD allocates the limited waiver slots each year based on a priority triage system with three categories:

Short-Term (need within 90 days): The highest priority. This includes individuals in immediate crisis — their primary caregiver has died or become incapacitated, they face homelessness, or they are experiencing abuse or neglect.

Medium-Term (need within 6 months): Individuals with significant functional limitations who are currently stable but whose caregivers are under high stress.

Long-Term (need within a year or more): Stable individuals with family supports who anticipate needing services as their caregivers age.

The state legislature funds only a limited number of new slots annually. For FY 2027, the General Assembly approved 500 new waiver slots, but Governor Kemp's executive budget disregards cut that funding by $9 million, reducing the number of newly funded slots to roughly 100.

How to Move Up the Planning List

The single most important thing a family can do is document changes in the individual's circumstances that justify a higher priority categorization.

When speaking with the DBHDD regional administrator, ask specifically: what is the individual's current priority score on the Planning List, and what documentation would be needed to demonstrate that the situation has escalated to Short-Term priority?

Submit updated clinical evaluations, behavioral assessments, or evidence of caregiver health changes to the regional field office whenever circumstances change. A caregiver hospitalization, a behavioral crisis requiring emergency services, or the loss of a housing arrangement are all events that should be reported immediately, with supporting documentation.

Families must also respond to DBHDD's annual follow-up inquiries. If you miss a response or change your contact information without notifying the agency, the individual's file can be silently archived — losing their chronological standing on the Planning List entirely. If this happens, you can attempt to link the old file to your IDD Connects online account using the "Track Non-Online Application" option and the individual's Consumer ID number.

The NOW vs. COMP Distinction

Both waivers use the same clinical and financial eligibility criteria. The difference is the intensity of supports:

NOW serves individuals who need intermittent or periodic support — community living assistance, job coaching, respite, day programming. The individual typically lives at home with family or in a supported apartment.

COMP serves individuals who need intensive, 24-hour residential supports — group homes, host homes, and around-the-clock staffing. The service packages are larger and costlier.

Families apply for both through the same DBHDD process and are placed on the same Planning List. When a slot becomes available, DBHDD matches the individual to the appropriate waiver based on the assessed level of care.

What to Do While Waiting

Because the wait is measured in years, not months, families should not treat the Planning List as a reason to pause other transition steps. File the NOW/COMP application to get on the list as early as possible — ideally at 18 — and then continue building the rest of the adult benefit structure in parallel.

That means completing the SSI age-18 redetermination, securing Medicaid, opening a Georgia STABLE account, connecting with Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation services, and establishing supported decision-making or other legal arrangements.

The Georgia SSI at 18 & Adult Disability Benefits Guide walks through this full parallel sequence, showing how to coordinate the waiver application with every other transition milestone from age 14 through 22 and beyond.

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