Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS)

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, known as KDADS, is the cabinet-level state agency that runs Kansas’s aging programs, Medicaid home and community-based disability waivers, behavioral health system, and four state psychiatric and developmental disability hospitals. It operates on a budget of more than $3.6 billion a year and reaches tens of thousands of older adults, people with disabilities, and Kansans dealing with mental illness or substance use disorders.¹ If you’re trying to find services for yourself or a family member, file a complaint about a nursing home, or understand where someone sits on a disability waiver waitlist, KDADS is the agency you’re looking for.

Where to Start If You Need Help

The practical front door is the Aging and Disability Resource Center, a statewide call center run by KDADS. ADRC staff connect older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers to services regardless of income, and they offer options counseling to help you weigh long-term care choices. They can also link you directly to local providers for in-home services, transportation, PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), and KanCare managed care organizations.²

For older Kansans, services on the ground are delivered through a network of 11 Area Agencies on Aging that cover the state’s planning and service areas.³ The AAA for your region is the typical point of contact for things like home-delivered meals and caregiver support.

Aging Services

As the designated State Unit on Aging, KDADS administers programs funded through the federal Older Americans Act. These include nutrition programs such as home-delivered meals, health promotion and disease prevention, caregiver support, and legal assistance delivered through Kansas Legal Services.³

Two state-funded programs sit alongside the federal ones. The Senior Care Act is a fee-for-service program for Kansans age 60 and older, designed to keep people out of nursing homes by funding in-home supports. The Prevention of Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (PEANE) grant program funds work on those issues at the community level.³ Two advisory bodies also feed into KDADS policy: a 15-member State Advisory Council on Aging established under K.S.A. 75-5911, and the Silver Haired Legislature, a body of 125 elected representatives age 60 and older who advocate on senior issues.

Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services Waivers

About 88% of KDADS spending runs through Medicaid, and the central piece of that for most families is the Home and Community-Based Services waiver program.¹ HCBS waivers are authorized under Section 1915(c) of the Social Security Act, and they fund services that let people stay in their homes and communities rather than entering institutional care. KDADS administers seven of them:

Autism (AU), for individuals starting services before age 6
Frail Elderly (FE), for individuals 65 and older
Intellectual/Developmental Disability (I/DD), for individuals age 5 and older
Physical Disability (PD), for individuals ages 16 to 64
Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED), for individuals ages 4 to 18
Technology Assisted (TA), for individuals requiring assistive technology supports
Brain Injury (BI), for individuals with traumatic brain injuries

⁴

The I/DD Waitlist

If you’re seeking the I/DD waiver, expect a wait. The intellectual and developmental disability waitlist has not dropped below 3,000 people in more than a decade, and the average wait runs about nine years.⁵ As of January 2025, 4,320 Kansans were on it.⁶ Most people who actually begin receiving services do so because they hit a crisis point, not because they reached the top of the list.

The 2024 legislative session moved things somewhat. Lawmakers directed $17.8 million toward the programs and, after overriding a veto by Governor Kelly, imposed a statutory cap of 4,800 people on the I/DD waitlist and 2,000 on the physical disability waitlist for fiscal year 2025. By October 2024, about 4,500 people remained on the I/DD list, down from 5,240 in January of that year, and the physical disability list had fallen from more than 2,200 to just over 1,000.⁷

The New Community Support Waiver

KDADS is building a new Community Support Waiver (CSW) aimed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who don’t require round-the-clock support. It’s designed as a lower-cost alternative to the comprehensive I/DD waiver, with a proposed annual cap of $20,000 per participant compared with the existing waiver’s roughly $70,000 average. Expected services include transportation, employment support, personal care, respite, and various therapies.⁶

Eligibility is set at age 5 or older with an intellectual disability (onset before age 18) or a developmental disability (onset before age 22).⁸ KDADS aimed to submit the waiver application to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in late fall 2025, with a launch target of spring 2026.⁶

Behavioral Health

Through its Behavioral Health Services Commission, KDADS is the state mental health authority and the single state authority for substance abuse prevention and treatment.⁹ The commission funds community mental health centers, addiction and prevention programs, and crisis services.

Specific programs you can access include the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, the Kansas Naloxone Program, which distributes free naloxone nasal spray and training, the Kansas Suicide Prevention Plan, problem gambling services funded through the Kansas Expanded Lottery Act, and a community medication program that acts as payer of last resort for Kansans who need psychiatric medications to stay out of the hospital.¹⁰

Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics

Kansas was the first state to enact legislation implementing the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) model, with Governor Kelly signing Senate Substitute for House Bill 2208 in 2021.¹¹ All 26 of the state’s community mental health centers have since been converted into CCBHCs, covering all 105 Kansas counties. The state was selected for the federal Section 223 Medicaid Demonstration program in June 2024.¹²

A 2024 KDADS study reported a 75% increase in access to behavioral health services statewide. In the 2025 Mental Health America survey for access to care, Kansas ranked 18th nationally, up from 51st two years earlier.¹³ Workforce shortages remain a drag: nationally, 90% of CCBHCs report staffing difficulties, and Kansas clinics are no exception.¹²

KDADS also licenses substance use disorder treatment facilities, community mental health centers, private psychiatric hospitals, crisis intervention centers, and psychiatric residential treatment facilities.¹⁴

State Hospitals

KDADS runs four state hospitals:

Larned State Hospital sits on 78 acres in Larned and serves the western two-thirds of Kansas. It treats more than 450 patients daily and employs nearly 750 people. It is accredited by The Joint Commission and certified by CMS.¹⁵
Osawatomie State Hospital, founded in 1866 in Miami County, serves adults with psychiatric disorders from 36 counties. The campus houses both OSH and the separately certified 60-bed Adair Acute Care unit.¹⁶
Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI) serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Parsons State Hospital also serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.¹⁷

Together, the psychiatric hospitals and State Institutional Alternative facilities serve roughly 2,000 individuals annually under care-and-treatment cases, with SIAs admitting several hundred more.¹⁷

Osawatomie’s Federal Status and Safety Audit

If you’re placing a loved one or evaluating care quality, Osawatomie’s status matters. CMS decertified the hospital in early 2016 after finding administrators had failed to control patient violence and that security staff had falsified safety-check records. The loss cost the state more than $1 million a month in federal payments.¹⁸ In December 2017, CMS recertified only the 60-bed Adair Acute Care unit, restoring Medicare funding for those beds while the main hospital remained decertified.¹⁹ OSH itself continues to operate without federal certification.²⁰

A December 2024 audit by the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit concluded that OSH “does not adequately ensure the safety and security of its staff.” Auditors found that 48% of documented security patrols were implausible based on the time recorded to complete them, at least 56 keys had been reported stolen with 8 lost grand master keys unaccounted for, personal safety alarms had not been tested since late 2021, and 37% of security staff lacked fire training as of September 2024.²¹ Auditors also flagged inconsistent discipline for employees, including instances where management failed to act on sexual harassment reports or address intoxicated staff.²⁰

Staffing Shortages

All four state hospitals have struggled with workforce shortages. As of March 2024, Larned had a 45% overall vacancy rate that hit 69% for nursing, while Osawatomie had a 37% overall vacancy rate. Private contract nurses filling the gaps cost roughly 2.5 times what a state employee would. Budget requests for contract staffing alone topped $60 million a year, with Larned requesting $43 million and Osawatomie $23 million.²² The legislature authorized bonus programs for state hospital employees in 2024 through HB 2551, capped at $10,000 per employee for fiscal year 2025, covering sign-on bonuses, referral bonuses, retention payments at six and twelve months, and extra-shift bonuses for direct-care staff.²³

New South Central Regional Mental Health Hospital

A new 104-bed psychiatric hospital is being built in Sedgwick County on a 77-acre campus called “OneRise.” The $101.5 million facility, funded through state and federal sources, will split beds evenly between acute inpatient care and forensic competency-to-stand-trial evaluations. The land was donated by local real estate investor Jeff Lange, and Sedgwick County is constructing the hospital before turning it over to the state for operations.²⁴ Groundbreaking took place on April 9, 2025. KDADS expects construction to finish by the end of October 2026 and operations to begin in early 2027, with roughly 300 staff needed to run the facility at full capacity.²⁵

Nursing Home Licensing and Complaints

If your concern is a nursing facility or other adult care home, the office to know is the KDADS Survey, Certification and Credentialing Commission. It licenses and inspects nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, residential health care homes, boarding care homes, home plus facilities, and adult day care programs across Kansas.²⁶ On-site compliance surveys verify adherence to both state regulations and federal certification standards, and the agency investigates complaints of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of residents in licensed facilities.²⁷

Enforcement tools include the Civil Money Penalty Reinvestment Program, the Adverse Incident Reporting system, and the authority to impose sanctions on noncompliant facilities. KDADS publishes CMS survey reports and maintains a public Adult Care Home Directory with inspection results, which you can check before placing a loved one.²⁸

On the workforce side, the Health Occupations Credentialing division maintains the Kansas Nurse Aide Registry, certifies nurse aides, medication aides, and home health aides, oversees the criminal record check program for adult care home employees, and licenses adult care home administrators through the Board of Adult Care Home Administrators.²⁹

Leadership

KDADS is headed by a secretary appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Kansas Senate. The current secretary is Laura Howard, named interim head of both KDADS and the Department for Children and Families by Governor Laura Kelly on January 3, 2019, and confirmed by the Senate on April 1, 2019.³⁰ Howard previously spent 15 years at the former Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, served as a regional administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and directed the Public Management Center at the University of Kansas.³¹

In September 2025, Secretary Howard appointed Kimberly Reynolds as the new Commissioner of Aging Services, replacing David Anderson, who retired at the end of August 2025. Reynolds had previously served as the state’s single authority for mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment within KDADS.³²

Budget

For fiscal year 2026, KDADS’s total budget request stood at approximately $3.65 billion. Federal funds made up about 58% ($2.1 billion), state general funds about 39.5% ($1.4 billion), and the remainder came from fee funds and the State Institutional Building Fund.³³ A consensus estimate added $319.3 million to adopt fall 2024 caseload projections, reflecting a 3.75% inflationary adjustment for nursing facility reimbursement rates and the ongoing growth of the CCBHC payment model.³⁴

1
Kansas Legislative Research Department. Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Overview
2
KDADS. Aging and Disability Resource Center
3
Kansas Legislative Research Department. KDADS State Plan on Aging 2022-2025
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KDADS. Home and Community-Based Services Information
5
Disability Rights Center of Kansas. End the Wait Campaign
6
Kansas Legislature. KDADS FY 2026 Budget Testimony
7
Kansas Reflector. Kansas Disability Waitlists See Major Progress After Legislative Action
8
KDADS. Community Support Waiver
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KDADS. Behavioral Health
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KDADS. Behavioral Health Services and Programs
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KDADS. Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics
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Kansas Health Institute. CCBHCs in Kansas
13
KDADS. CCBHC Announcement
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KDADS. Behavioral Health Licensing
15
KDADS. Larned State Hospital
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KDADS. Osawatomie State Hospital
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KDADS. State Hospitals
18
KCUR. New Problems, Same Result: Federal Payments Still Halted for Osawatomie State Hospital
19
Wichita Eagle. CMS Warning to Adair Acute Care
20
Kansas Reflector. Kansas Audit Sounds Alarm on Security Flaws at Osawatomie State Hospital
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Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit. Evaluating Staff Safety at Osawatomie State Hospital
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Kansas Reflector. Kansas Lawmakers Anxious About Costly Nursing Shortage at Psychiatric Hospitals
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Kansas Legislature. KDADS Staffing and Workforce Testimony
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Wichita Eagle. South Central Regional Mental Health Hospital Construction
25
KDADS. South Central Regional Mental Health Hospital
26
KDADS. Adult Care Homes – Survey, Certification, and Credentialing
27
KDADS. Licensing and Policy
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KDADS. Survey, Certification and Credentialing Commission
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KDADS. Health Occupations Credentialing
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Kansas Department for Children and Families. DCF History – Present
31
Topeka Capital-Journal. Gov.-Elect Laura Kelly Appoints Interim Secretary to Run DCF, KDADS Agencies
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WIBW. Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Appoints New Commissioner
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Kansas Legislature. KDADS FY 2026 Budget Presentation
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Kansas Legislative Research Department. KDADS FY 2026 LBC Recommendations