How to Apply for Medicaid in Texas: 2026 Step-by-Step Guide

You can apply for Medicaid in Texas online, by phone, in person, or by mail. The harder part for a senior isn't the form, it's the path: if your countable income is over the long-term-care cap, you'll usually need a trust in place before you apply, not after a denial. This guide walks through every method, the documents you'll need, and the senior-specific traps that sink most applications.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• How to Apply for Medicaid in Texas
• How to Apply as a Senior: The Long-Term-Care Path
• What Documents You'll Need
• Can Someone Else Apply for You?
• How Long Does the Application Take?
• Why the Date You Apply Matters
• Why Applications Get Denied
• What If You're Denied?
• Where to Get Free Help
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

How to Apply for Medicaid in Texas

Texas gives you four ways to submit a Medicaid application. Pick whichever fits your situation.

Online at YourTexasBenefits.com

Go to YourTexasBenefits.com, the state's official benefits portal, and start a new application. You can create an account, which lets you save your progress, upload documents, and check your status later, or you can apply without one. The portal handles applications for Medicaid for the Elderly and People with Disabilities, the pathway most seniors use.

By Phone

Call 2-1-1 (the state's health-and-human-services information line) and ask for benefits. A representative can walk you through the application over the phone. If you're deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired, use your relay service to reach the same line.

In Person

Walk into any HHSC benefits office. Staff can help you fill out the paper application on the spot, and many offices have computers if you'd rather apply online with someone nearby to answer questions. You can find your nearest office through YourTexasBenefits.com or by calling 2-1-1. The office finder also lists community partner sites, such as food banks and community health centers, where you can get application help.

By Mail

You can download the senior application (Form H1200) from the HHSC website or call 2-1-1 to request a paper copy. Fill it out, sign it, and mail it to your local benefits office. The form tells you exactly where to sign and what identifying information to add. If you'd rather not handle the mailing yourself, a benefits office or community partner can submit it for you.

How to Apply for Medicaid in Texas as a Senior: The Long-Term-Care Path

The four channels above are the whole story if you're a working-age adult applying for regular health coverage. They are not the whole story for a senior who needs Medicaid to pay for long-term care, and missing the difference is what trips families up.

Two things make the senior, long-term-care path different from the standard online application:

You may need a Qualified Income Trust before you apply. Texas is an income-cap state for long-term-care Medicaid. A single applicant's countable income has to be at or below $2,982 per month in 2026 (that figure is 300% of the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit rate).1 There's no "spend-down" of excess income for this pathway the way some states allow. Before you assume you're over, check what actually counts: HHSC's first step is working out which income is countable, and some money isn't. Certain Veterans Affairs benefits don't count toward Medicaid eligibility, and where a Qualified Domestic Relations Order split retirement income, HHSC follows a name-on-the-check rule.1 If countable income does land above the cap, a Qualified Income Trust (QIT), also called a Miller Trust, can overcome the limit: income diverted into the trust is no longer counted for institutional or waiver eligibility.1 An elder law attorney can set one up, and it generally needs to be in place before eligibility starts, so it's worth handling early rather than after a denial.

You have to clear a level-of-care assessment. Nursing facility (institutional) Medicaid requires a nursing-facility medical level-of-care determination on top of the financial rules.1 Waiver services delivered in the community, such as STAR+PLUS Home and Community Based Services, carry an institutional level-of-care requirement of their own.4 The online application never mentions this step, but it's a real gate: the state assesses whether you medically need that level of care before it will pay for it.4 One more difference worth knowing about waivers: unlike regular Medicaid, Texas may cap how many people a waiver serves and keep an interest list when demand runs past that capacity, so qualifying and getting a slot are two separate things.4

If you're applying for regular community Medicaid rather than long-term care, neither of these applies, and the standard application is all you need.

What Documents You'll Need

Gather these before you start. Missing paperwork is one of the biggest reasons applications stall.

Identity and citizenship:

• Social Security card or statement
• U.S. passport, birth certificate, or Certificate of Naturalization
• Texas driver's license or state ID card
• If you're already on Medicare, that generally satisfies citizenship verification

Income:

• Social Security award letter or SSA-1099
• Pension and retirement income statements
• Recent pay stubs, if you're still working

Financial accounts:

• Bank statements for all checking and savings accounts (the current month plus several prior months)
• Statements for retirement accounts, CDs, stocks, bonds, and any trusts

For nursing-home or waiver Medicaid, expect to provide far more financial history. Because Texas applies a 5-year (60-month) look-back to asset transfers, the state may ask for up to five years of statements to confirm nothing was given away or sold below value.5 That's the single biggest reason the long-term-care document load is heavier than people expect, and it's tied directly to the look-back.

Property and insurance:

• Property deeds and recent tax bills
• Life insurance policies (face value and cash surrender value)
• Health insurance cards and your Medicare ID
• Vehicle registration or title
• Burial plot deeds and prepaid funeral contracts

Medical expenses (for deductions):

• Recent medical bills
• Pharmacy statements and insurance premium receipts

Can Someone Else Apply for You?

Yes. If you're helping a parent or another family member, there are a few paths, and which one you use depends on whether the applicant can still sign for themselves.

A family member or close friend who knows the applicant's financial situation can help complete and submit the application directly. If the applicant can sign, that's the simplest route.

If someone outside the family needs to handle things, or the applicant wants a formal stand-in, they can be named as an authorized representative using HHSC's representative form, signed by the applicant. An authorized representative can submit the application, provide documents, check status, and receive notices.

If the applicant can't sign because of incapacity, such as advanced dementia, a person with legal authority (an agent under a power of attorney, a legal guardian, or a court-appointed representative) can sign and act on their behalf by providing documentation of that authority. This is the path families hit most often when a parent is no longer able to manage the process themselves.

How Long Does the Application Take?

Federal Medicaid rules cap how long the state can take. Under 42 CFR 435.912, the state has no more than 45 days to decide most applications, and no more than 90 days for applicants who apply for Medicaid on the basis of disability.3 Those are maximums for the agency, measured from the date you apply, not a promise your answer will come that fast.

Know which of those two limits is yours, because it is the one the state has to meet. The window turns on the basis you applied under, not on whether a disability determination happens to arise in your case. The 90-day standard applies to people applying for Medicaid on the basis of disability. If you're applying as a senior on the basis of age, your application falls under the 45-day standard even when the file involves medical records or a level-of-care review, and the state may exceed it only in the unusual circumstances the regulation lists: a delay caused by you or by an examining physician, an administrative or other emergency beyond the agency's control, or, once the community-engagement requirement is live, the 30-calendar-day period a state must give someone to respond to a notice of noncompliance.3

Here's the honest part the rule doesn't tell you: long-term-care cases are the slowest ones the state handles, because of the financial review and the level-of-care assessment. So if your case is sitting past its deadline with no exception in play, say so by name when you call, and ask what the hold-up is.

The fastest thing you can do to keep it moving is respond quickly when the state asks for more documents. After you apply, check YourTexasBenefits.com regularly. A request for missing information often shows up online before the letter reaches your mailbox, and missing a verification deadline is a common cause of denial. If you haven't heard anything as the deadline approaches, call 2-1-1 and ask for a status update.

Why the Date You Apply Matters

The day you apply isn't just paperwork timing. It anchors a window of retroactive coverage. Under federal law, once you're approved, Medicaid can cover eligible care you received in the three months before the month you applied, as long as you would have qualified back then.6 For a family staring at nursing-home bills that have already piled up, that back-coverage can matter more than the going-forward benefit.

One important change is coming: for applications filed on or after January 1, 2027, a federal law (Public Law 119-21) shortens that retroactive window to two months for most enrollees and one month for the Medicaid expansion adult group.6 Through the end of 2026, the three-month window still applies. If care has already been provided and you're eligible, applying sooner rather than later protects more of the back-coverage.

Why Applications Get Denied

Most denials fall into two buckets: procedural and financial.

Procedural denials. These happen when the documents the state requested don't arrive by the deadline. They're common and almost entirely avoidable. When the state sends a request for information, respond right away rather than setting it aside.

Income over the cap. For nursing-home and waiver Medicaid, the income cap is $2,982 per month for a single applicant in 2026, and Texas has no spend-down for excess income.1 If income exceeds the cap, a Qualified Income Trust (Miller Trust) can redirect the excess so you still qualify.1 This is the single most common surprise for families, and it's fixable if you handle it before applying.

Assets over the limit. The countable asset limit is $2,000 for a single applicant. The $3,000 couple limit applies to married adults living in the same household, so once one spouse moves into a nursing facility, Texas tests that spouse at the individual $2,000 limit under its spousal-impoverishment policy.2 Your primary home, one vehicle regardless of value, household goods, and personal effects aren't counted as resources at all.2 Home equity is a separate rule and not a resource test: if your equity interest in the home is above $752,000 in 2026, you aren't eligible for Medicaid to pay for care in an institutional setting and you'll be denied waiver services, even though the home itself still isn't counted. That rule doesn't apply at all if your spouse, or your child who is under 21, blind, or permanently and totally disabled, lawfully lives in the home.7 Common trip-ups are savings above the limit, accessible retirement accounts, and life insurance with cash value.

Asset-transfer penalties. Texas looks back 60 months for gifts or below-market sales.5 If you made an uncompensated transfer during that window, the state divides the total uncompensated value by a daily penalty divisor of $262.37 (for case actions disposed on or after September 1, 2025) and rounds partial amounts down to whole days.5 A hypothetical $50,000 gift divided by that $262.37 divisor works out to 190 days of ineligibility.5 Not every transfer is penalized: transferring the home to a child who is blind or permanently and totally disabled is exempt, as is a transfer to a son or daughter who lived in the home for at least the two years immediately before you were institutionalized and provided care that let you stay home instead.5 This is exactly why the look-back drives so much of the document load.

What If You're Denied?

You have time to fight a denial, and you should if you think it's wrong. Go by the deadline printed on your own notice. Federal rules require the state to allow a reasonable time to request a fair hearing and cap that window at 90 days from the date the notice was mailed, but 90 days is a ceiling on what a state may allow, not a floor you're guaranteed: a shorter state deadline is permitted and fully enforceable against you.8 Read your notice for the date that governs your case, and request the hearing inside it. You can request one by calling 2-1-1, visiting an HHSC office, or submitting the request in writing.

A hearing can happen by phone, by video, or in person. If you disagree with the outcome, you can ask for further review.

Before you go it alone, call your local Area Agency on Aging. They've handled many of these cases and can often tell you quickly whether the denial was procedural (a missing document you can still provide) or substantive. Legal aid organizations can represent you at no cost if you qualify. And remember the retroactive-coverage window above: winning an appeal can restore coverage for care you already received.

Where to Get Free Help

You don't have to figure this out alone. Several options help Texas seniors with Medicaid at no cost. The phone lines below are staffed by Texas Health and Human Services and its partners.9

Next Steps

Gather your documents first, and if your income is over the long-term-care cap, talk to an elder law attorney about a Qualified Income Trust before you apply. Both steps save time and head off the two most common reasons applications fail. When you're ready, start here.

Learn More

Find personalized help applying for Texas Medicaid 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.