By Austin Senior Advisor Care Team · July 11, 2026
No published median exists for memory care in Texas or in Austin. That absence shapes every funding decision families make. Here is what each source of money really covers, and the order-of-operations mistakes that cost the most.
First, the uncomfortable fact: there is no published price
The 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey, released March 2, 2026 with rates collected between July and November 2025, is the most widely cited long-term care pricing source in the country. It publishes a Texas median of $5,666 a month for assisted living, $5,627 for a semi-private nursing home room and $7,604 for a private one, $30 an hour for a non-medical home caregiver, and about $90 a day for adult day health care.
It does not survey memory care as a category. No median exists for memory care in Texas, and none exists for Austin. Any website quoting you a specific monthly memory care figure for Austin is presenting an estimate as a fact, and the specific numbers circulating online do not trace to a primary source.
This is not a research gap we expect anyone to close. Memory care is priced per building, per resident, and per care level, with enormous spread. Two communities six miles apart can differ by thousands of dollars a month for the same person, because they price care differently and because certified memory care capacity is scarce enough that pricing power sits with the operator.
What we can tell you is the shape of it. Memory care generally prices above standard assisted living in the same market, because staffing ratios are higher, the unit is secured, and the license carries additional requirements. The Austin metro runs above the Texas statewide median. Build your plan around a range you gather yourself from written quotes, not around a number you found on a comparison site.
What actually drives the number
Two things set memory care pricing, and neither is square footage.
The first is licensing. Memory care is not a license type in Texas. A community serving residents with Alzheimer's disease or related dementias in a dedicated unit needs a separate Alzheimer's certification under 26 TAC 553.27. That certification requires a Type B license, is verified through an on-site health and Life Safety Code inspection, and caps the number of residents the certified unit may serve. Capacity is a fixed, regulated quantity. Scarce supply holds prices up regardless of how many new buildings open along I-35.
The underlying license matters too. HHSC licenses assisted living as Type A or Type B based on the resident's ability to evacuate, under 26 TAC 553.5, not on care acuity. Type A residents must be able to evacuate without physical staff assistance and must not require routine attendance during nighttime hours. Type B covers residents who need help evacuating, need nighttime attendance, or need help transferring to or from a wheelchair, though a Type B resident must not be permanently bedfast. Verify licensure and certification yourself at TULIP, tulip.hhs.texas.gov, and pull inspection history from apps.hhs.texas.gov/ltcsearch, before you tour.
The second driver is the care level assessment. Every community scores incoming residents on how much help they need, using its own proprietary tool. Texas does not standardize that tool. The score sets a care fee stacked on top of base rent, and it can be reassessed during the stay. Dementia progresses, so in memory care this is not a hypothetical. Ask for the full care level rate ladder in writing before you sign, so you can see your worst case.
One thing you cannot use: star ratings. CMS star ratings and Medicare Care Compare cover nursing facilities only. Texas assisted living and memory care are state-regulated with no federal rating. If a placement service shows you stars for a memory care community, those stars did not come from CMS.
Private pay is the default, so run the depletion math first
The large majority of memory care in the Austin metro is paid privately, out of savings, retirement income, investment accounts and home sale proceeds. Understanding that up front changes how you sequence everything else.
Build one spreadsheet. Total liquid assets on one side. On the other, the monthly gap between reliable income, meaning Social Security, pensions, annuities and required distributions, and the all-in monthly cost, including base rent, care level, and the incidentals that are billed separately. Escalate that cost by the community's actual historical rate increase, which you should ask for as a three-year percentage history rather than a policy statement. The output is a single number: the month you run out.
That date is the most important number in the entire process, and most families never calculate it. It determines whether you can afford this community at all, whether the house needs to be sold and when, and how much lead time you have for Medicaid planning, which needs years, not weeks.
Price the alternatives honestly against it, because memory care is not always the right first move. Adult day health care runs about $90 a day in Texas, roughly $1,950 a month. AGE of Central Texas, 512-451-4611, at 7640 Guadalupe Street, Austin 78752, operates adult day health programs in both Austin and Round Rock with a nurse on site at all times, plus a free early-stage memory loss program, free CaregiverU courses, and free health equipment lending including wheelchairs, walkers and shower benches. For many families in the early and middle stages, day programs plus in-home care buy a year or more of runway at a fraction of residential cost.
Also price in-home care correctly. At $30 an hour, the Texas median, roughly 44 hours a week comes to about $5,720 a month, and dementia care that requires overnight supervision runs far past that. In-home care is often cheaper than memory care for part-time needs and considerably more expensive once supervision has to be continuous. Find the crossover point for your own situation rather than assuming.
Long-term care insurance: read the policy, not the brochure
If your parent holds a long-term care policy, it is likely the most valuable asset in this plan and the most commonly mishandled. Find the actual policy document, not the annual statement.
Check five things. The daily or monthly benefit amount and whether it has an inflation rider, because a policy written in 1998 without inflation protection may cover a small fraction of current cost. The benefit period, in years or as a lifetime maximum pool. The elimination period, typically 30 to 100 days, and critically whether it counts calendar days or days on which paid services were actually delivered, because those produce very different start dates. Whether the policy covers residential assisted living and memory care or only nursing facility care, since older policies are often nursing-home-only. And the benefit trigger, which for most modern policies is either dependency in two or more activities of daily living or a documented cognitive impairment.
That last one matters enormously in dementia. Cognitive impairment is usually an independent trigger. Your parent may qualify while still bathing and dressing themselves, because supervision needs, not physical dependency, are the issue. Families routinely delay filing because they think their parent is not disabled enough. Check the cognitive trigger language and file when it is met.
File early and document relentlessly. Insurers require a plan of care, physician certification, and ongoing proof of services. Keep every invoice. Elimination periods that count days of paid service mean an in-home caregiver hired in month one can start the clock running while your parent is still at home, so that benefits are available the day residential care begins.
And do not let a policy lapse during a transition. Premium notices go to the insured's home address, which is the address nobody is checking while a parent is in a hospital or a new apartment. Redirect the mail before the move.
VA Aid and Attendance
This is the most underused benefit in Central Texas, and the metro has the veteran population to prove it. Recent estimates count approximately 46,722 veterans in Travis County, 38,936 in Williamson, and 14,042 in Hays.
Aid and Attendance is a pension benefit for wartime veterans and surviving spouses who need help with daily activities. Effective December 1, 2025, the maximum annual rates are $29,093 for a veteran with no dependents, about $2,424 a month; $34,488 with one dependent, about $2,874 a month; $46,143 for two married veterans both eligible, about $3,845 a month; $21,313 for a housebound veteran; $18,697 for a surviving spouse, about $1,558 a month; and $22,304 for a surviving spouse with one dependent.
Understand the mechanism, because it is what makes the benefit work for memory care. The VA pays the difference between countable income and the maximum annual rate, and unreimbursed medical expenses, including assisted living and home care costs, reduce countable income. A veteran whose income looks too high on paper can become eligible once a memory care bill is applied against it. Do not self-disqualify based on income alone.
The net worth limit for the period December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026 is $163,699, and there is a three-year look-back on asset transfers. That look-back is why sequencing matters: assets given away inside three years of applying can create a penalty period.
Two practical warnings. Never pay anyone a fee to file a VA claim; accredited representatives, veterans service organizations and county veterans service officers assist at no charge. And expect processing to take months, so file as soon as the medical expense stream begins rather than waiting for a placement decision. Details are in the Aid and Attendance guide.
Medicaid: what STAR+PLUS will and will not do
This is where the most expensive misunderstandings happen, so be precise.
Texas has no broad state-funded assisted living benefit. The main route into residential care through Medicaid is the STAR+PLUS HCBS waiver, which covers assisted living care services but not room and board. Read that twice. Even a fully approved waiver participant still needs an income source, usually Social Security, to pay the room and board portion, and not every community will accept the arrangement. The waiver is also interest-list driven, meaning approval does not begin when you apply for benefits, it begins when your name comes up.
The 2026 financial tests for STAR+PLUS: income under $2,982 a month for a single applicant, countable assets under $2,000, with a home and one vehicle generally exempt, plus a Nursing Facility Level of Care determination. Apply through 2-1-1 or at YourTexasBenefits.com. The only other non-Medicaid path is Residential Care under Community Care for the Aged and Disabled, funded by the Title XX block grant, which is small and also interest-list driven.
Nursing facility Medicaid is a separate program with the same 2026 income limit of $2,982 a month and $2,000 in countable assets for the applicant, a Community Spouse Resource Allowance reported at $162,660 to protect the at-home spouse, and a Personal Needs Allowance of $75 a month, raised from $60 on January 1, 2024. For advanced dementia with skilled nursing needs, this path is often more realistic than waiting on a waiver list.
Finally, Medicaid Estate Recovery. MERP applies if the recipient was 55 or older when services were received and first applied for long-term services and supports on or after March 1, 2005. It is a claim against the estate after death, not a seizure during life, and exceptions and undue hardship waivers exist. Understand it, plan around it with a Texas elder law attorney, and do not let fear of it drive a panicked home sale. See the STAR+PLUS overview and what MERP actually does to the house.
The sequencing mistakes that cost the most
Almost every expensive error we see is not a wrong choice. It is a right choice made in the wrong order.
Waiting to join the interest list. STAR+PLUS is interest-list driven. Getting on the list costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and the wait can run years. Families call 2-1-1 the month the money runs out and discover that was the one step that had to happen years earlier.
Gifting assets to children before checking the look-back periods. Medicaid long-term services apply a five-year look-back on transfers under federal rules; VA pension applies its own three-year look-back. A well-intentioned transfer of a house or a bank balance can create a penalty period at exactly the moment care is needed. Talk to a Texas elder law attorney before moving any asset, not after.
Placing into a community that will not accept the eventual funding source. If your depletion date says private pay ends in 30 months, ask every community you tour whether it accepts STAR+PLUS residents, in this building, and whether it retains private-pay residents who convert. Many Austin-area memory care communities are private pay only. Moving a person with advanced dementia twice is worse for them clinically and more expensive for you than choosing correctly once.
Not filing for VA because the income looked too high. The benefit is calculated after unreimbursed medical expenses reduce countable income, so the memory care bill itself often creates the eligibility. And selling the house reflexively, when a home is generally exempt for Medicaid purposes during the recipient's life and a sale converts an exempt asset into countable cash. Sometimes selling is right. It should be a decision, not a reflex.
Get free, unbiased help before you commit. The Aging and Disability Resource Center of the Capital Area is 855-937-2372, weekdays 8 to 5. The Area Agency on Aging of the Capital Area is 512-916-6062. Family Eldercare, 512-483-3580, helps with money management and guardianship questions. Meals on Wheels Central Texas is 512-477-2273. Once a parent is living in a licensed facility, the long-term care ombudsman is free and independent: Capital Area Area Agency on Aging, 512-916-6054 or 888-622-9111 option 3, 6800 Burleson Road, Building 310, Suite 165, Austin 78744, covering Travis, Williamson, Hays and seven other counties. To report a problem at a licensed facility, HHSC Complaint and Incident Intake is 1-800-458-9858, weekdays 7am to 7pm Central; for a community setting rather than a facility, the Texas Abuse Hotline is 1-800-252-5400, 24 hours.