What Does the Ohio PASSPORT Waiver Cover? A Plain-English Breakdown

PASSPORT is Ohio's DODD waiver for adults age 60 or older who are financially eligible for Medicaid and have been assessed as needing nursing-facility level of care but want to stay safely at home. It is administered through your local Area Agency on Aging (in Lucas County, that's the Area Office on Aging of Northwestern Ohio).

Personal care: bathing, dressing, toileting, transfers, grooming, and medication reminders.

Homemaker services: light housekeeping, laundry, meal preparation, and basic errands directly tied to the home.

Adult day services: structured programming at a state-licensed adult day center, including meals and supervised activity.

Respite: short-term relief for unpaid family caregivers, billed in 15-minute units up to several hundred hours per year.

Home-delivered meals: typically one hot meal per weekday, often through Meals on Wheels.

Non-medical transportation: rides to medical appointments, the pharmacy, the grocery store, and approved community activities.

Personal Emergency Response System (PERS): the wearable button that calls for help if you fall.

Minor home modifications and adaptive equipment: grab bars, ramps, raised toilet seats, transfer benches, and similar safety upgrades.

Pest control, chore services, and nutritional supplements: covered in specific qualifying circumstances.

24-hour live-in care. PASSPORT is designed to supplement family care, not replace it. Families needing around-the-clock support often combine PASSPORT with private pay or a different waiver.

Skilled nursing visits or medical therapies. Those are billed to regular Medicaid or Medicare, not the waiver.

Room and board. PASSPORT does not pay rent, mortgage, or utilities.

The exact number of authorized hours depends on your Level of Care assessment and the care plan your case manager builds with you. A typical PASSPORT plan in Lucas County runs 15 to 40 hours per week of personal care plus homemaker, with respite layered in monthly.

If your needs change, you can request a reassessment. Don't wait until the next scheduled annual review. Call your case manager the week the change happens.

Your PASSPORT case manager from the Area Office on Aging of Northwestern Ohio will come to the home for the first visit. They use the Ohio Long-Term Care Consultation tool to score activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, eating, and continence.

They also score instrumental ADLs: cooking, cleaning, managing medications, getting to appointments, handling money. The combined score determines your Level of Care, which is the door to the waiver.

Have these ready: current medication list, primary care doctor and recent specialists, insurance cards (Medicare and Medicaid), and a list of who already helps. The first visit is faster when this is on the table.

The most common reasons we see PASSPORT denied: income just over the Medicaid limit, Level of Care assessed as below nursing-facility need, or missing verification documents (bank statements, deed, life insurance cash value).

If you are denied, you have a right to a state hearing. File within 90 days. Bring the assessment notes, a written statement from the primary care doctor, and any caregiver journal showing how often you need help.

If income is the issue, the Qualified Income Trust (Miller Trust) can bring you into eligibility. We help families set these up routinely.