Frank Schulenburg / Wikimedia Commons
Why It Matters
For Wyoming families navigating the aging of a parent or sibling, the financial and logistical realities of long-term care are increasingly unmanageable. With roughly 106,000 family caregivers across the state and a sparse rural healthcare infrastructure, the burden falling on individuals and families is significant — and growing.
The situation has drawn attention from state health officials, nonprofit workers, and advocacy groups who say Wyoming’s elder care system is struggling to keep pace with demand.
What Happened
Judy Rogers, nearly 80 years old, lived alone in her Lander home while dealing with diabetes-related mobility and balance problems. Over the course of a single year, she fell approximately 20 times — several of those incidents serious enough to require emergency medical technicians. Her brother Walt, who lives hundreds of miles away in Idaho, watched from a distance as her situation became increasingly precarious.
Rogers did not want to enter a nursing home, a preference shared by many older Wyomingites. But staying home safely required consistent, reliable caregiving support — the kind that is difficult to find and harder still to afford in rural Wyoming.
Her situation reflects a broader pattern across the state. Sarah Wilzbacher, who founded Anam Cara, a caregiving nonprofit based in Lander, said the rural character of Wyoming makes it uniquely difficult for seniors to age in place. “Wyoming being just a rural state, there’s very limited options for people to be able to stay at home and have quality care,” she said.
Rachael Price, co-executive director of development and strategy at Anam Cara, made the difficult personal decision to leave her job entirely in order to provide full-time care for her severely ill mother — a sacrifice that illustrates just how few formal options exist for many Wyoming families.
By the Numbers
- $7,974 — average monthly median cost for non-medical in-home caregivers in Wyoming in 2025, based on a 40-hour week, according to CareScout’s Cost of Care Survey.
- 23% — share of Wyoming adults serving as family caregivers, according to AARP data, representing roughly 106,000 people statewide.
- 80% — percentage of caregivers who cover costs out of their own pockets to meet a loved one’s needs.
- 40th — Wyoming’s overall ranking among states in the 2023 AARP long-term services and supports scorecard.
- 17% — the equivalent, in full-time workers, represented by unpaid family caregivers nationwide, per a 2026 AARP report.
Coverage Gaps Drive the Problem
A widespread misconception compounds the financial strain. A 2022 survey by KFF found that more than 20 percent of adults incorrectly believe Medicare covers nursing home care on an ongoing basis. In reality, Medicare does not pay for indefinite long-term care, and many private insurance plans exclude it as well. Insurance-covered in-home services are often limited to medical tasks, leaving non-medical caregiving — help with bathing, meals, and daily mobility — largely uncovered.
The gap between what insurance pays and what families actually need has pushed the cost burden squarely onto individuals. With nearly $8,000 per month required for professional in-home care, many families simply cannot sustain the expense and turn instead to unpaid relatives.
State Response
The Wyoming Department of Health acknowledged the strain publicly. Director Stefan Johansson noted that application volume for Medicaid long-term care eligibility has climbed sharply in recent years. “What we’ve seen in recent years is a pretty dramatic growth in the volume of applications we’re receiving, mostly from seniors,” he said.
The department asked the state legislature for authorization to add two new positions in its Medicaid long-term care eligibility unit. Lawmakers approved the request during the session, a modest step toward addressing the administrative backlog — though advocates say the structural challenges go well beyond staffing.
What’s Next
Nonprofits like Anam Cara are working to fill gaps the formal care system cannot reach, but their capacity is limited in a state as large and sparsely populated as Wyoming. Policymakers face growing pressure to address both the cost and availability of elder care services, particularly as Wyoming’s population ages and the pool of available family caregivers strains under compounding financial and geographic pressures.
For context on how Wyoming’s broader fiscal policies may affect funding priorities, see related coverage on property tax caps and local government revenue risks and proposed new tax structures affecting Wyoming households.
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