A nursing home in Georgia runs about $105,850 a year for a shared room, below the national median but more than almost any family can pay out of pocket for long. The good news is that Georgia Medicaid pays for nursing-facility care for people who meet its income and resource limits and its other criteria, such as medical need.

This guide walks through what a nursing home is, how to check a facility's quality before you choose one, what it actually costs in Georgia, and how Georgia Medicaid pays for long-term nursing-facility care.

In This Guide

What a Nursing Home Is

In Georgia, a nursing home is a skilled nursing facility, licensed by the Department of Community Health under its own set of rules, separate from assisted living. Continuous nursing care is the line between the two. Georgia's assisted living communities serve adults who need help with daily activities but don't require continuous medical or nursing care, and if a resident comes to need that care, the department may require the home to discharge them. A nursing home exists for the person who needs it.

People arrive at a nursing home along two different paths, and it's worth keeping them straight because they're paid for differently. The first is short-term rehabilitation, often after a hospital stay for a stroke, a fall, or surgery, where the goal is to recover and go home. Medicare helps with that short stay under specific conditions: it generally requires a qualifying inpatient hospital stay of at least three days (some Medicare Advantage plans, and doctors in an approved Accountable Care Organization, can waive that), and it covers up to 100 days per benefit period. Under Original Medicare, days 21 through 100 carry a daily coinsurance of $217 in 2026, and a Medicare Advantage plan may charge copayments even during the first 20 days. After day 100, Medicare pays nothing. The second path is long-term custodial care, ongoing help with daily activities that someone can't safely get at home. Medicare does not pay for that long-term custodial care. That is the care families worry about affording, and Medicare itself points families to Medicaid, for those who meet their state's rules, or to private long-term care insurance.

How to Check a Facility's Quality

Quality varies widely from one nursing home to the next, and Georgia gives you several free tools to vet a place before you commit. Use more than one. Each shows you something the others don't.

Start with the state's own records. The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) licenses and inspects nursing homes through its Healthcare Facility Regulation Division (HFRD), which monitors each long-term care facility through initial, recertification, complaint, infection-control and follow-up surveys. DCH publishes facility listings, license verification, inspection (survey) reports, and complaint forms through its GaMap2Care "Find a Facility" database. Look up any facility you're considering and read its recent survey reports. Look for a pattern of repeat deficiencies rather than reacting to a single old citation.

Next, check the federal star rating on Medicare Care Compare. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services gives each nursing home on Care Compare an overall rating of 1 to 5 stars. A 5-star home is considered much above average in quality, and a 1-star home much below average. That rating combines health inspections, staffing, and quality measures, and the staffing component deserves a close look on its own.

Finally, know who to call when something seems wrong. The Georgia Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, run by the Department of Human Services Division of Aging Services, advocates for residents of nursing homes, personal care homes, and assisted living, and it investigates complaints. It's worth calling your local ombudsman about a facility before you ever sign anything.

What a Nursing Home Costs in Georgia

Nursing-home care is expensive everywhere, but Georgia runs below the national median. According to the 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey (released March 2, 2026, from rates collected July through November 2025), the Georgia statewide medians were about $105,850 a year for a semi-private room and about $113,150 a year for a private room, both figures built on 365 days of care, which works out to about $290 and $310 a day. Nationally, the same survey put a semi-private room at about $114,975 a year. Those are medians from an industry survey, not government rates and not maximums. The figure at any one facility can land higher or lower depending on location, room type, and level of care.

Room type Georgia (year) Georgia (month) National (year)
Semi-private room $105,850 $8,821 $114,975
Private room $113,150 $9,429 $129,575

To put that in context, the same 2025 survey put Georgia assisted living at a median of about $5,300 a month, roughly $63,600 a year for a private one bedroom. A semi-private nursing-home room costs about two-thirds more than that. The gap is the reason families look hard at whether assisted living or in-home care can meet the need before moving to a nursing home, and it's the reason so many families look to Medicaid rather than paying privately for years.

Does Georgia Medicaid Pay for Nursing Homes?

Yes, and this is the single most important thing to understand about paying for a Georgia nursing home. Georgia Medicaid pays for long-term care through two main channels, and institutional, or nursing-facility, Medicaid is one of them. The other is the Elderly and Disabled Waiver Program, delivered as the Community Care Services Program (CCSP) and SOURCE, which serves people who need a nursing-facility level of care at home or in the community instead. Federal rules let a state limit how many people a waiver like that serves and keep a list of people waiting to enroll. The trade-off is that nursing-facility Medicaid pays for care in a facility, not at home.

Qualifying turns mainly on an income test and a resource test, and Georgia considers medical needs and functional status too. Here is how the money side works in 2026.

Income. Georgia publishes its own income limit for nursing-facility care, in the Division of Family and Children Services Medicaid Policy Manual, Appendix A1, effective July 2026. Under living arrangement D (the class Georgia uses for a person in a nursing home or institutionalized hospice), the Medicaid Cap is $2,982 a month for an individual. A $5,964 couple cap applies only when both spouses live together in living arrangement D, at home or in the same nursing home, and using the individual cap would leave one of them ineligible. Compare the cap to gross countable income. The chart that prints it is headed "net income limits (gross - $20)," but Georgia's Medicaid Cap budgeting policy, Section 2510, tells the caseworker to compare gross countable monthly income to the cap and not to allow income deductions, so no $20 comes off first. The $2,982 figure is 300% of the $994 SSI federal benefit rate, and Georgia's limits change when Social Security raises SSI. Georgia's long-term services and supports page adds that the limits for this care "may be higher than the limits for other Medicaid programs," and that functional status, age, citizenship, medical needs and Georgia residency are considered too.

An applicant whose gross income is at or above the cap is not simply locked out, but Georgia's manual points to two different routes, and only one of them gets the nursing home paid. A Qualified Income Trust (often called a Miller trust) can shelter all or part of the income from the cap test; without one, the applicant is income ineligible under any living-arrangement-D class of assistance until it is set up. Without a trust, Georgia budgets the applicant as ABD Medically Needy instead, and it says plainly that in that case Medicaid will not cover the vendor payment to the nursing home. The trust has strict terms. It must be made up only of the applicant's income, with no resources in it, be irrevocable, be set up in Georgia, and leave what remains at death to the Department of Community Health up to what Medicaid spent. It also can't be backdated: it takes effect in the month everyone required signs it.

Assets. Georgia publishes the asset limit too, on the same appendix's resource chart: $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. If your parent is married and their spouse is staying in the community, $2,000 is emphatically not the number to plan against. Appendix A1 carries a separate column for an applicant with a community spouse, and its spousal-impoverishment row reads $162,660 plus $2,000, or $164,660. The $2,000 and $3,000 figures are limits on countable resources, and Georgia leaves some property out of that count, so a homeowner shouldn't read the bare $2,000 as a verdict on their eligibility.

Estate recovery. One thing families are often blindsided by later: federal law requires every state, Georgia included, to seek recovery from a recipient's estate after they die for what Medicaid correctly paid toward nursing-facility care, home- and community-based services and related hospital and prescription drug services, when the recipient was 55 or older at the time. It also requires recovery in the case of a resident of any age in a nursing home or other medical institution who must spend all but a small personal-needs amount of income on care and whom the state has found, after notice and a chance for a hearing, can't reasonably be expected to go home. The estate includes the person's real and personal property under state probate law, which can include the home, and a state may choose to reach assets that pass outside probate too. Recovery has to wait until any surviving spouse has died, and can't happen while there's a surviving child under 21 or who is blind or permanently and totally disabled. Every state must also offer a waiver when recovery would cause undue hardship, but a family that owns a home should understand estate recovery before applying. Our Georgia Medicaid estate-recovery guide covers how it works, and an elder-law attorney can advise on planning options.

Keep in mind that the aged, blind and disabled categories are not the only door into Georgia Medicaid. The state also runs Right from the Start Medical Assistance, a postpartum coverage extension, Planning for Healthy Babies, and Georgia Pathways to Coverage, so don't read the long-term-care rules as a verdict on a younger relative's eligibility. Long-term-care Medicaid runs through the aged, blind, and disabled pathway, which is its own application track with its own income and asset rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a nursing home cost in Georgia?

The 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey put Georgia's median at about $105,850 a year (roughly $8,821 a month, or $290 a day) for a semi-private room and about $113,150 a year (roughly $9,429 a month, or $310 a day) for a private room, with both annual figures assuming 365 days of care. Those are statewide medians from an industry survey, not maximums, and Georgia runs below the national median.

Does Medicaid pay for nursing home care in Georgia?

Yes. Nursing-facility Medicaid is one of Georgia's two main long-term-care channels, and it pays for care in a facility for people who meet its income and resource limits and its other criteria, such as functional status and medical need. The other channel, the Elderly and Disabled Waiver delivered as CCSP and SOURCE, serves people at home instead, and federal rules let a state cap a waiver's enrollment and keep a waiting list.

What are the Medicaid limits for a nursing home in Georgia in 2026?

Georgia publishes them in DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Appendix A1, effective July 2026. For living arrangement D, the nursing-home class, the Medicaid Cap is $2,982 a month for an individual, and the resource limit is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. Georgia compares the cap to gross countable income, with no $20 subtracted. A $5,964 couple cap applies only when both spouses live together in living arrangement D and the individual cap would leave one of them ineligible. If the applicant is married and their spouse stays at home, the resource figure is Georgia's spousal-impoverishment amount of $164,660 ($162,660 plus $2,000), not $2,000. Georgia also leaves some property out of the countable-resource total, so the bare $2,000 isn't a verdict on a homeowner's eligibility.

What if my income is over the limit?

Gross income at or above the $2,982 cap doesn't end the road. Georgia lets the applicant set up a Qualified Income Trust, often called a Miller trust, to shelter all or part of that income from the cap test; without one, the applicant is income ineligible for nursing-facility Medicaid until it exists. Georgia's other route at that point, ABD Medically Needy, won't pay the nursing home's vendor payment, so the trust is the route that matters for nursing-home care. The trust can't be backdated, and setting one up correctly is detailed work, so many families use an elder law attorney.

How do I check whether a Georgia nursing home is good?

Look the facility up on the state's GaMap2Care "Find a Facility" database for its license verification and inspection (survey) reports; the same database carries complaint forms. Then check its overall 1-to-5-star rating on Medicare Care Compare, paying attention to the staffing component, and contact your local Long-Term Care Ombudsman for on-the-ground information.

Learn More

Care TypesNursing Homes by State: Costs, Medicaid Coverage, and How to ChooseWhat a nursing home costs, how Medicaid pays for it, and how facilities are rated all share a federal floor but vary by state. See yours, with a 50-state guide. Care TypesAssisted Living in GeorgiaGeorgia has two assisted living licenses that decide what care your parent can get. See what each costs, what Medicaid covers, and how to vet a facility. Care TypesMemory Care in GeorgiaMemory care in Georgia: what a certified memory care center is, what it costs, how HB 987 protects residents, whether Medicaid helps, and how to vet one. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Long-Term CareGeorgia Medicaid long-term care in 2026: nursing facility coverage, HCBS waivers (EDWP with CCSP and SOURCE, ICWP, NOW, COMP), PACE, and how to apply. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Personal Needs AllowanceGeorgia Medicaid's Personal Needs Allowance is $70 a month for nursing facility residents in 2026. Learn how the patient liability calculation protects it. MedicaidGeorgia Nursing Facility Admission ProcessHow Georgia Medicaid covers nursing facility admission in 2026: PASRR screening, level of care, financial eligibility, patient liability, and the first 30 days. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid (the full guide)Georgia Medicaid 2026: income and asset limits, the EDWP waiver (CCSP and SOURCE), Pathways to Coverage, Miller Trusts, estate recovery, and how to apply. Care TypesMemory Care vs. Nursing Home in GeorgiaMemory care vs. a nursing home in Georgia: which fits dementia, and who pays. Georgia Medicaid covers nursing homes but not memory care room and board.

Find personalized help comparing nursing homes in Georgia at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.

Still have questions?

Brevy answers from this guide and every other guide here, and can check what you qualify for.

BC

Brevy Care Team

Expert eldercare guidance from Brevy's team of healthcare professionals and researchers.