Mississippi ID/DD Waiver Planning List

The Reality of Mississippi's ID/DD Waiver Waitlist

For families of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Mississippi, the Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) ID/DD Waiver is the primary funding mechanism for long-term adult supports — in-home personal care, supervised community living, day habilitation, respite care, and supported employment. It's administered by the Mississippi Division of Medicaid and operated through the Department of Mental Health (DMH) Bureau of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (BIDD).

But there's a hard truth every transition-age family needs to hear early: this waiver is not an entitlement. Enrollment is capped by state legislative appropriations. The planning list currently has approximately 2,500 individuals waiting, and families report average wait times of nine to fourteen years before receiving a slot. Legislative funding acts typically add only 200 to 250 individuals from the planning list to active waiver services each fiscal year.

If your child has a significant intellectual or developmental disability, the ID/DD Waiver planning list should be on your radar long before the transition IEP meeting at age 14.

How to Get on the Planning List

The entry process runs through Mississippi's five DMH regional centers. Each center serves specific counties, so you'll need to contact the one covering your residential address:

• Boswell Regional Center (Magee) — southwestern Mississippi — (601) 867-5000
• Ellisville State School (Ellisville) — southeastern and central Mississippi — (601) 477-9384
• Hudspeth Regional Center (Whitfield, Rankin County) — central and western Mississippi — (601) 664-6000
• North Mississippi Regional Center (Oxford) — northern 32 counties — (662) 234-1476
• South Mississippi Regional Center (Long Beach) — six southernmost coastal counties — (228) 868-2923

The process:

1. Contact your regional center to schedule a diagnostic evaluation. This intake assessment determines whether your child meets the institutional level of care criteria required for waiver eligibility.
2. Complete the evaluation. The center's clinical team assesses your child's adaptive functioning, cognitive abilities, and daily support needs.
3. Formal placement on the planning list. If your child meets the criteria, their name is added to the statewide ID/DD Waiver planning list.
4. Verify Medicaid eligibility. Before final enrollment in waiver services (when a slot eventually becomes available), your child must have active Medicaid coverage. This can be established through standard Medicaid eligibility categories, SSI-linked Medicaid, or the Disabled Child Living at Home (DCLH) program.

The standard recommendation from disability advocates across the state is to initiate this process as early as possible — ideally when the child first receives a formal developmental diagnosis, or at the latest by the first IEP to be in effect when the student turns 14.

What the ID/DD Waiver Actually Covers

Once your child does receive a waiver slot, the program funds a comprehensive set of community-based services designed as alternatives to institutional placement:

• Support Coordination — mandatory case management that coordinates all waiver services
• Home and Community Supports — personal care assistance in the home
• Respite Care — temporary caregiver relief
• Day Services-Adult — community-based socialization, training, and daily skill building
• Prevocational Services — broad-based work preparation (motor coordination, work tolerance, task completion)
• Supported Residential Habilitation — group home settings with 24/7 staffing

These services form the core infrastructure of independent (or semi-independent) adult living for people with significant disabilities in Mississippi.

The 1915(i) Bridge While You Wait

Mississippi Medicaid operates the IDD Community Support Program under a 1915(i) state plan amendment, and it functions as a critical bridge for adults aged 18 and older who have completed their formal education and are waiting on the ID/DD Waiver planning list. Unlike the waiver, the 1915(i) program has no cap on enrollment — there is no waitlist for individuals who meet both the clinical eligibility criteria and the income threshold (at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Level).

The 1915(i) program covers Day Services-Adult, Prevocational Services, Supported Employment (job coaching for competitive integrated employment), and Supported Living (up to four hours per day of personal assistance with daily tasks). It does not include 24-hour residential habilitation, but for many young adults transitioning out of school, it fills the immediate gap between the end of FAPE and the eventual availability of a full waiver slot.

Don't Wait for the IEP Team to Tell You

Schools must identify and, when appropriate, coordinate with outside agencies that are likely to provide or pay for transition services, but the ID/DD Waiver planning list is frequently overlooked in IEP meetings — especially in under-resourced rural districts that may not have a dedicated transition coordinator. If your child has an intellectual or developmental disability, the waiver planning list conversation needs to happen at the family's initiative.

The Mississippi IEP Transition to Adulthood Guide maps the DMH application timeline alongside the IEP milestones, MDRS referrals, and SSI determinations so you can see how all the pieces fit together across the transition years.

See more Mississippi guides →