Serving Tampa Bay

Senior Care Resources helps families in Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Hardee and Highlands counties qualify for and obtain Florida long-term care Medicaid. A dense urban county paired with rural Hardee and Highlands, where facility access and CARES scheduling look very different depending on which side of the region you're on. We work with Tampa Bay families by phone, video, and secure document upload — see what we do for our founding and fee.

Where we serve in Tampa Bay

Counties: Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Hardee and Highlands.

Communities include: Tampa, Brandon, Plant City, Lakeland, Winter Haven, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Sebring, Wauchula.

What is different about Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay region combines a large urban county with several rural ones, and CARES assessment scheduling can vary widely between them. Families in Polk and Highlands counties in particular often find that assisted living Medicaid (the SMMC Long-Term Care program) has a longer wait than nursing home Medicaid, which changes what the right first step is.

More about Tampa Bay

This region splits sharply between dense, urban Hillsborough County — home to Tampa and to Sun City Center, a large age-restricted community in the county's south end with its own hospital and nursing facilities — and the more rural counties of Hardee and Highlands, part of what's known as the Florida Heartland, an agriculture-driven area with far fewer facilities nearby.

Polk County, centered on Lakeland and Winter Haven, has its own established retiree population and senior-living market, distinct from but well connected to the Tampa side of the region.

Because Florida's Medicaid application system runs through a single statewide system rather than a county office, the paperwork itself doesn't change based on which of these five counties a family is in — but facility availability and CARES scheduling can look very different in rural Highlands County than in urban Tampa. Hillsborough, Polk, and Manatee counties each maintain their own property appraiser homestead exemption filing, worth checking before or during a Medicaid application.

Local agencies a family here will deal with

Senior Connection Center : the Aging and Disability Resource Center for Tampa Bay — 8928 Brittany Way, Tampa, FL 33619, 1-800-963-5337, seniorconnectioncenter.org/ . It screens applicants for the assisted living and home care wait list.
Department of Elder Affairs, CARES program : makes the medical level-of-care determination. The CARES program — the Department of Elder Affairs' medical-necessity assessment for long-term care Medicaid — is administered separately from the Area Agency on Aging, through its own regional field office. Call the agency below or the Department of Elder Affairs at 850-414-2000 to be connected to the CARES office serving this region.
Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) (ACCESS Florida, 1-866-762-2237): takes the financial application. We handle the filing and stay on the case with all three agencies through approval.

The 2026 Florida figures

The income cap is $2,982 a month, the countable asset limit is $2,000 for a single applicant, and a spouse at home keeps up to $162,660 in assets. These figures are the same everywhere in Florida, including in Tampa — see the full Florida Medicaid limits guide for the rest of them and how each one works.

How we work with families here

A free screening tells us the applicant's income, assets, and care setting, and we give you a written summary before anything is filed: where the applicant stands against Florida's limits, what the application will require, and which questions need an attorney. From there we gather the documents, file with DCF, coordinate the CARES assessment, and stay on the case until there is a decision. See how the process works and what to expect from the application for the full walkthrough.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a hillsborough county office where we file the Medicaid application?

No single county office — Florida's DCF ACCESS system is centralized statewide. Applications go in online, by mail, or in person at any Family Resource Center, regardless of which of the five counties in this region you live in.

My mother lives in sun city center. Does that change anything?

Not procedurally. Sun City Center is a large age-restricted community in southern Hillsborough County with its own hospital and nursing facilities nearby, but the eligibility rules and the CARES assessment are the same as anywhere else in the county.

Do you work with families in lakeland or winter haven?

Yes. Polk County is part of this same region, served by the Senior Connection Center, and we work with Polk families the same way we work with Hillsborough families.

Is nursing home Medicaid different in highlands or hardee county than in tampa?

The rules are identical statewide. What's different is practical: Hardee and Highlands are rural, agriculture-based counties with far fewer nursing homes and assisted living facilities nearby, so families there sometimes need to look toward Tampa, Lakeland, or Sarasota for placement.

How long is the wait for a CARES assessment or a waiver slot here?

We won't publish a number that isn't currently accurate — it isn't posted anywhere as a fixed figure, and it moves. The CARES assessment is scheduled through the state's regional CARES units, separate from the Senior Connection Center's own waiver waitlist. Call the Senior Connection Center at 1-800-963-5337, or call us, for where things actually stand.

Florida guides

Neighboring regions

Free Medicaid assessment

Find out where your family stands in Tampa Bay

We'll email you a short two-page intake form about your family member's care, income, and savings. Once you send it back, a member of our staff reviews it personally and calls you to talk through where things stand and what comes next. Families anywhere in Florida. No cost, no obligation.

Call (239) 977-5175

This page is general information about Florida Medicaid, not legal advice, and nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Medicaid rules change and every family’s facts are different.

Senior Care Resources is a separate company from Zacharia Frey PLLC. Its Medicaid application services are not legal services, and no attorney-client protection applies to them. When an attorney becomes involved, that is a separate legal representation with the law firm.