Where Polk County's 246 OSS Beds Are, and How Low-Income Seniors Use Them

The gap OSS is meant to fill

Florida Medicaid's long-term care program can pay for the care part of assisted living: help with bathing, dressing, medications and supervision. It does not pay for the apartment or the meals. For a person whose only income is Social Security or SSI, that leaves a room-and-board bill they often cannot cover, and that is the gap Optional State Supplementation was built for.

OSS is a monthly cash payment from the Department of Children and Families, governed by rule 65A-2.036. DCF adds the facility's base provider rate to the $160 personal needs allowance to find the resident's total need, subtracts the resident's countable income, and pays the difference, within the money the Legislature appropriates.

Which Polk facilities report OSS beds

Source: AHCA facility profiles, retrieved November 6, 2026. Reported beds are the facility's own designation; whether one is open today is a question for the facility.

Reading the Medicaid column

AHCA profiles list Medicaid services in two forms. 19 Polk ALFs list Assistive Care Services, a Florida Medicaid state plan service that pays for certain help to eligible residents of ALFs and adult family care homes. 7 list the Assisted Living Waiver, a label carried over from the former assisted living waiver, which Florida folded into the Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Long-Term Care program.

What matters in practice is whether the facility has a contract with the long-term care plan your parent is enrolled in. Plan networks differ and change, so ask the facility which SMMC LTC plans it contracts with, and confirm with the plan.

How the money works for one resident

Under DCF's 2026 standards, a Medicaid long-term care enrollee living in an ALF keeps a personal needs allowance of room and board plus 20% of the federal poverty level ($266 for an individual). In plain terms, the resident's income pays room and board, OSS can top that up when income falls short, the plan pays for care services, and a small amount is left for personal spending.

Because the OSS amount depends on both the facility's rate and the resident's income, two residents in the same building can receive different amounts. Both the income standard and the base provider rate rise each year with the SSI cost-of-living adjustment, so ask DCF or the facility for current-year figures rather than trusting an older number online.

What to watch for in the lowest-cost buildings

Buildings that rely heavily on OSS and Medicaid operate on thin margins, and some do it well while others struggle. Before choosing, read the facility page for three things: the date and citations of the latest standard survey, any fines on the AHCA profile and their dates, and whether the building changed owners recently. Visit at a mealtime and in the evening, when staffing is thinnest. Ask how many residents each caregiver is responsible for overnight, and whether a staff member is awake all night, which Florida requires once a facility has 17 or more residents. A parent with very limited income deserves the same scrutiny of a building as anyone else, and the public records make that possible.

Practical steps for a Polk County family

Start with a call to Senior Connection Center, 1-800-336-2226, which can screen for Medicaid long-term care and help with the OSS application at the same time. Apply for OSS through ACCESS Florida and name the facility where your parent lives or will live.

Before a move, ask the facility three things in writing: whether it has an OSS bed open, which long-term care plans it contracts with, and what the resident will owe each month after OSS and Medicaid. Then read the facility's inspection history and sanctions, because the lowest-cost buildings are not all equal, and a few Polk facilities with OSS beds carry significant fines on their profiles.