How to Pay for a Walk-In Tub or Stair Lift in Texas: Medicaid Waivers, VA Grants & Assistance Programs (2026)

Texas has more real money for accessibility modifications than almost any state — but none of it comes from the program most people ask about first. Original Medicare does not pay for walk-in tubs or stair lifts. What does pay: the STAR+PLUS Medicaid waiver's minor home modifications benefit, the state's Amy Young Barrier Removal grant of up to $22,500, VA grants for veterans, and a USDA program for rural homeowners 62 and older. This guide walks through each one with the actual dollar limits and worked examples.

Start with the bad news: Medicare does not cover walk-in tubs

The single most common question we get from Texans — "will Medicare pay for my walk-in tub?" — has a clear answer: no, Original Medicare (Parts A and B) does not cover walk-in tubs, stair lifts, or bathroom remodels. Medicare Part B pays for durable medical equipment — things like walkers, hospital beds, and commode chairs that are primarily medical in nature. A tub or a lift bolted to your staircase is treated as a home modification or convenience item, and home modifications sit outside the DME benefit entirely.

Two caveats worth knowing:

• Medicare Advantage (Part C) plans sometimes help. Some Advantage plans sold in Texas include supplemental "special supplemental benefits for the chronically ill" that can put money toward bathroom safety devices or in-home safety modifications. This varies plan by plan and year by year — check your plan's Evidence of Coverage or call the number on your card before assuming anything.
• Medicare is not Medicaid. If you're a Texan who is dual-eligible (Medicare plus Medicaid through STAR+PLUS), the Medicaid side is where home-modification money actually lives — see the next section.

What this means in practice: a Texan on Medicare alone, paying cash, is looking at roughly $2,000–$6,000 installed for a straight stair lift and anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000+ for a walk-in tub depending on the model and the state of the existing plumbing. Everything below this point is about not paying that cash price.

Texas Medicaid: the STAR+PLUS waiver's minor home modifications benefit

STAR+PLUS is the Texas Medicaid managed-care program for adults with disabilities and adults 65 and older. Members who qualify for the Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) program inside STAR+PLUS — people who meet a nursing-facility level of care but want to stay in their own homes — get access to a benefit called minor home modifications.

What counts as a "minor" modification

Per the state's STAR+PLUS Handbook, Section 6600, minor home modifications are physical adaptations to a member's home, required by the service plan, that are necessary for the member's health, welfare and safety, or that let the member function with greater independence. The handbook's own examples include:

• Installation of wheelchair ramps and grab bars
• Widening of doorways
• Modification of bathroom facilities — this is the category a roll-in shower conversion, tub cut, or accessible tub falls under
• Specialized electric and plumbing systems needed to accommodate medical equipment

Whether a specific item — a full walk-in tub versus a cheaper roll-in shower conversion, or a stair lift versus relocating a bedroom downstairs — gets approved depends on the assessment. The plan pays for what the service plan says is necessary, and a lower-cost adaptation that solves the same safety problem will usually be the one authorized.

The dollar limits

The benefit carries a lifetime limit of $7,500 per member. After the lifetime limit is used, the plan allows $300 per year for repairs, replacement, or additional modifications. One important exception, straight from the handbook: if a member's Individual Service Plan documents a need for modifications that exceed the lifetime limit, the managed-care organization is permitted to exceed it without prior state approval — so a genuinely necessary bigger job is not automatically dead at $7,500.

How you actually get it: the service coordinator path

1. Be enrolled in STAR+PLUS with HCBS. If you're on Texas Medicaid and 65+ or disabled, you're likely already in STAR+PLUS with one of the contracted health plans. If you're not yet on Medicaid, eligibility runs through Your Texas Benefits or 2-1-1 Texas; HCBS additionally requires a nursing-facility level-of-care determination.
2. Call your plan's service coordinator. Every STAR+PLUS HCBS member has a named service coordinator at their MCO (Superior, Molina, UnitedHealthcare, etc.). This person owns your Individual Service Plan — the document that authorizes services.
3. Ask for a home assessment for minor home modifications. The coordinator arranges the assessment, writes the needed adaptations into the service plan, and the MCO procures the work through its contracted providers. You do not hire a contractor and submit receipts — modifications bought outside the plan generally can't be reimbursed after the fact.
4. The work is installed and inspected, and the cost counts against the $7,500 lifetime benefit.

The Amy Young Barrier Removal Program: up to $22,500, and renters qualify too

This is the program most Texans have never heard of and the one with the biggest check for non-veterans who aren't on Medicaid waiver services. The Amy Young Barrier Removal (AYBR) Program, run by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA), provides one-time grants of up to $22,500 per household to remove accessibility barriers and hazardous conditions for Texans with disabilities.

The eligibility rules, per TDHCA:

• The household must include a person with a disability (any age — not just seniors).
• Household income must be at or below 80% of Area Median Family Income (AMFI) as defined by HUD for the HOME program — the limit varies by county and household size; TDHCA publishes the current income limits tables.
• Both homeowners and renters can qualify (rental units need landlord consent).
• It's a grant, not a loan — nothing is repaid.

Funds flow through TDHCA's network of local administrators (cities, counties, and nonprofits), so you apply through the participating organization serving your county — TDHCA's program page lists who currently has funds. Because each administrator gets a limited reservation of funds, timing matters: an administrator can be "out" one quarter and funded the next.

Veterans in Texas: HISA, SAH and SHA grants

Texas has one of the largest veteran populations in the country, and the VA runs the most generous home-modification grants of any federal agency. Three separate programs matter — and they can be combined.

HISA: the workhorse grant for tubs and lifts

The Home Improvements and Structural Alterations (HISA) benefit pays for medically necessary home improvements — bathroom adaptations, ramps, doorway widening, and similar access work. Lifetime amounts:

• $6,800 — for a service-connected condition, or a non-service-connected condition if the veteran is rated at least 50% service-connected disabled
• $2,000 — for a non-service-connected condition otherwise

Every HISA project must be medically justified with a prescription from a VA (or VA-authorized) physician, and it runs through the Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service at your VA medical center.

SAH and SHA: the big-structural grants

For veterans with qualifying severe service-connected disabilities (loss or loss of use of limbs, certain blindness, severe burns), the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) grant is up to $126,526 and the Special Home Adaptation (SHA) grant up to $25,350 for FY 2026. Veterans living temporarily in a family member's home can use the Temporary Residence Adaptation (TRA) version — up to $50,961 (SAH-eligible) or $9,100 (SHA-eligible) in FY 2026. Apply through VA Form 26-4555.

Rural Texas homeowners 62+: USDA Section 504

If you own a home in a USDA-eligible rural area — which covers a large share of Texas outside the big metros — the USDA Section 504 Home Repair program offers:

• Loans up to $40,000 at a fixed 1% interest rate over 20 years, for repairs and improvements including accessibility modifications — available to very-low-income homeowners (below 50% of area median income) of any age;
• Grants up to $10,000 (lifetime) for homeowners 62 and older who cannot repay a loan, restricted to removing health and safety hazards — a dangerous bathroom or an inaccessible entrance can qualify;
• Loan-grant combinations up to $50,000.

Check your address against the USDA property eligibility map and apply through your local USDA Rural Development office. One catch: grants come with a lien-like condition — if you sell the home within three years, the grant must be repaid.

Try before you buy: Texas Technology Access Program

Before committing thousands of dollars, Texans can borrow assistive devices for free. The Texas Technology Access Program (TTAP) at UT Austin — the state's federally designated Assistive Technology Act program — runs short-term device loans and demonstrations: bath lifts, transfer benches, portable ramps, alert systems, and other equipment you can trial at home before buying. It won't lend you a walk-in tub, but a few weeks with a borrowed bath lift has talked plenty of families out of a $15,000 tub they didn't need — or confirmed they did.

Every program at a glance

The order to work the list

1. On Medicaid, or might qualify? Call your STAR+PLUS service coordinator (or start a Medicaid application) first — the waiver path costs you nothing and the assessment is the fastest route to a funded ramp or bathroom modification.
2. Veteran? File HISA in parallel — it's a separate pot and doesn't care what Medicaid does.
3. Everyone under 80% AMFI: find your county's Amy Young administrator and get on their list — at up to $22,500 it's the largest single grant most Texas households can access.
4. Rural and 62+: check USDA 504 eligibility for your address.
5. Paying cash anyway? Borrow the equipment from TTAP first and trial it, and get at least three bids — walk-in tub pricing in Texas varies wildly for identical units.