Hospice Medicaid rates in Wyoming follow an unusual pattern: the state pays less than most for home-based hospice and more than most for inpatient care. Wyoming Medicaid pays $180.08 a day for hospice routine home care on revenue code 0651, ranking 18th of 21 states and 3.5% below the national median of $186.66. Its general inpatient care rate, $1,188.05 a day, ranks 7th of 18 and sits 2.6% above the national median.
Nationally, the same few states tend to lead and trail across the levels of care. Wyoming breaks that pattern, and that inversion shapes which hospice business models work in the state. A hospice built almost entirely on routine home care earns less per day than in most states; one that also provides general inpatient care earns more than most on those days. This page explains each level, the wage and travel realities of a frontier state, and how to plan around a schedule with this shape.
| Level of care | Code | Wyoming rate | Rank | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Routine home care | 0651 | $180.08 a day | 18 of 21 | -3.5% |
| Inpatient respite | 655 | $527.44 a day | 12 of 19 | -0.5% |
| General inpatient care | 656 | $1,188.05 a day | 7 of 18 | +2.6% |
| Continuous home care | 652 | $1,654.77 | not ranked | n/a |
All four rates are effective October 1, 2025 and come from the Wyoming Department of Health's published Wyoming Medicaid Hospice Rates for Wyoming Medicaid fee-for-service.
Wyoming bills hospice on institutional revenue codes, one per level of care. Routine home care, respite and general inpatient care are paid per day. A routine day pays the same whether the hospice team visits once or not at all, so the cost of each day, not its rate, decides the margin.
Continuous home care as a single amount
Continuous home care is listed as a single amount rather than an hourly rate. That makes it different from most states and means it cannot be ranked with them.
One schedule
All four levels come from the same fee-for-service schedule with the same effective date. There are no plan rates to reconcile against, which keeps billing straightforward.
Routine home care on revenue code 0651 is paid for each day a patient is enrolled and at home, whether or not a visit occurs, and it covers most hospice days. At $180.08, Wyoming ranks 18th of 21 states. Only three states rank lower: Missouri at $178.98, South Carolina at $173.92 and Arkansas at $80.36.
The gap to the national median is small in daily terms, but routine home care is billed across a whole census, every day. For a Wyoming hospice, a rate 3.5% below the national median is a steady drag on the level of care that pays for most of its patients. The top states are far ahead: New York pays $317.60 and Massachusetts $231.13.
The daily rate also has to absorb travel time between patients, which never shows up as a billable unit. In a state where a single nurse may cover a very large territory, a few patients spread across long distances can consume most of a working day.
That makes visit planning central to a Wyoming hospice's finances. Practical steps include grouping patients by route, combining visits by different disciplines on the same trip where the plan of care allows, and using telephone check-ins between in-person visits for stable patients. None of these changes the rate, but each lowers the cost of a routine day and frees staff time for patients who need more visits. For hospices covering large service areas, that makes the routine home care rate more important than its small gap to the median suggests.
General inpatient care (656). $1,188.05 a day, 7th of 18 states. Wyoming sits just behind the national leaders: Oregon ($1,354.60), New York ($1,299.97), New Jersey ($1,253.17), South Dakota ($1,231.51) and Massachusetts ($1,202.36). It is well above Kansas ($1,057.76) and Missouri ($1,048.85).
General inpatient care is short-term care for pain or symptoms that cannot be managed at home. A Wyoming hospice that operates an inpatient unit or contracts for beds with a hospital or nursing facility gets a better-than-median rate for those days. In rural areas where the nearest bed may be in a small hospital, that rate gives the hospice room to offer a fair daily price.
Inpatient respite (655). $527.44 a day, 12th of 19 states and 0.5% below the national median of $530.15. Respite is effectively at the middle of the country, between Oregon's $629.83 at the top and Kansas ($496.74) and Missouri ($492.74) near the bottom.
Wyoming lists continuous home care on revenue code 652 as a single amount of $1,654.77. Because it is not stated as an hourly rate, it is not ranked against the hourly continuous care rates other states publish, where the national median is $66.11 an hour and the range runs from $59.29 in West Virginia to $80.47 in Oregon.
A Wyoming hospice billing continuous care should first check the state's hospice rate document for how the amount is applied to the hours of care actually delivered. Crisis care in a frontier state is as much a staffing question as a payment one: a nurse who must drive a long way to a patient in crisis is unavailable to others for most of the day.
May 2025 federal wage data shows Wyoming below the national median for most hospice roles:
- Registered nurse: $40.27 an hour, against a US median of $46.90
- Home health / personal care aide: $15.96, against $17.21
- Healthcare social worker: $29.93, against $32.63
- Chaplain: $29.61, against $29.24
Lower nurse and aide wages partly offset the below-median routine home care rate. The chaplain median is the exception, slightly above the national figure. Statewide medians are only a starting point; a hospice should compare them with its own payroll for the areas it serves, and should include mileage and drive time in labor cost, since those add more in Wyoming than in most states.
Wyoming Medicaid is run by the Wyoming Department of Health, and hospice is paid under the state's fee-for-service rates. The state's Medicaid publications name 18 plan and benefit-plan entries, but they are mostly Medicaid coverage groups and care-management programs, such as WYhealth Health Management, rather than risk-based plans. For a Wyoming hospice, the published fee-for-service rate is the payment for every level of care. The Wyoming managed care page has the state-level detail.
Wyoming's coverage rules for hospice list revenue codes 0651, 0655 and 0656, with no prior-authorization requirement on any of them. Admission depends on the usual certification and election; documentation in the record is the safeguard if a claim is later reviewed.
Many older Wyoming residents receive home supports through the Community Choices Waiver, which serves older adults and people with physical disabilities. When a waiver participant elects hospice, the waiver services and the hospice plan of care need clear boundaries so that personal care and aide visits do not overlap. Agreeing the division in writing at election protects both providers' claims, and reviewing it whenever the patient's level of care changes keeps it current.
Among nearby states with hospice pages, Utah is in the top five for inpatient respite at $557.97, and South Dakota ranks in the top five for general inpatient care. Wyoming comes close to them on general inpatient care, ranking 7th, but trails on routine home care.
For a regional operator, that comparison matters more than national rank. A hospice working across the Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota borders will see routine revenue per day vary only modestly, while inpatient and respite revenue varies more. The bigger difference between these markets is often cost: wage levels, distances and the availability of inpatient beds differ widely from one service area to the next. Comparing rate minus local cost per day is the most reliable way to decide where to add capacity.
- Budget by level of care, treating inpatient days as the stronger line. Project routine, respite, general inpatient and continuous care days separately rather than using one blended daily rate.
- Cost routine days with travel included. Measure cost per routine day by territory, including drive time and mileage, and review routes whenever the census shifts.
- Use the inpatient rate to secure beds in rural hospitals and facilities, and negotiate respite and general inpatient beds in the same agreement.
- Confirm how continuous care is applied. Check the state's rate document for how the single amount relates to the hours delivered before billing.
- Plan for October, when the next rate year begins, and load the new schedule on its effective date.
Rates on this page are compiled from official state Medicaid publications, and each rate links to its source document. The hospice figures come from the Wyoming Department of Health's Wyoming Medicaid Hospice Rates.
These hospice rates are part of all 47,114 current Wyoming Medicaid rates across 107 service categories. See the hospice Medicaid rates by state hub, the Wyoming Medicaid rates page, our methodology for how daily and hourly hospice rates are compared, and pricing for full dataset access.