How to Become a Medicaid Waiver Provider in Kansas

Kansas routes intellectual and developmental disability services through Community Developmental Disability Organizations, one per service area, and affiliation with yours is not a formality. K.A.R. 30-64-22 spells out when a CDDO may refuse to affiliate with a provider: if the provider rejects the reimbursement rates set by the secretary, if the provider has established a pattern of non-compliance, or if the affiliation would jeopardize the CDDO's own operations. Talk to the CDDO for your service area before you spend money on anything else — a license you cannot pair with an affiliation buys you nothing. Two other things worth knowing early. The license itself comes in two forms, and the limited license is a real option if you intend to serve only one or two specific people you already know. And because Kansas delivers Medicaid through KanCare, a state license plus a CDDO affiliation still leaves you needing managed care contracts before members can reach you.

Get licensed as a community service provider, affiliate with the CDDO for your service area, enroll with the Kansas Medical Assistance Program, and contract with the KanCare managed care organizations.

1. Talk to your CDDO before anything else

   The CDDO implements the approved service-area procedures and decides on affiliation. Because refusal is permitted on defined grounds, its answer shapes whether the rest of the process is worth starting.

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2. Apply for the appropriate license

   Determine whether your operation calls for a full license or the limited license reserved for serving one or two specified people with a familial or preexisting relationship in their own homes.

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3. Affiliate with the CDDO

   Affiliation makes you selectable: the CDDO must enable each person or guardian to choose their service provider, and must ensure affiliated providers comply with the established procedures.

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4. Enroll with the Kansas Medical Assistance Program

   State licensure and CDDO affiliation do not by themselves make you a billable Medicaid provider. Confirm the current KMAP enrollment path with KDADS before you plan a start date.

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Kansas Medicaid runs as KanCare, a managed care program. A state license and a CDDO affiliation establish that you are qualified and selectable; contracts with the KanCare managed care organizations are what let their members actually receive services from you. Treat MCO contracting as a separate project with its own timeline, and ask each MCO what it requires before you assume licensure is sufficient.

Kansas does not publish these in a form we could verify, so we have not guessed at them. Ask directly — and if an answer here would help other providers, tell us and we will add it with its source.

• Which KDADS commission issues the community service provider license, what does the application require, and is there a fee?

  Ask: KDADS, via the HCBS provider information page at kdads.ks.gov

• Which I/DD license categories are currently offered — day services, residential services, targeted case management — and which ones is your CDDO's service area short of?

  Ask: Your area's CDDO

• What is the current KMAP enrollment process for HCBS providers, and what screening level and revalidation cycle applies?

  Ask: Kansas Medical Assistance Program provider enrollment

• What background checks and staff training hours does KDADS require for your license type?

  Ask: KDADS, via the HCBS provider information page at kdads.ks.gov

• Which KanCare managed care organizations serve your area, and what does each require to contract with a newly licensed provider?

  Ask: Each KanCare MCO's provider relations department