Facebook-f Linkedin
Client Portal

Remote Support in Colorado: Every Service It Fits, and How It Is Paid

Colorado covers Remote Supports as a Community First Choice benefit, a Health First Colorado State Plan option that started July 1, 2025. Any Colorado provider agency can get Vista Enterprise™, the remote support solution, the way it gets an EHR or payroll system, with no state approval. Billing is separate. The agency’s own trained team responds and decides.

Can any Colorado agency buy a remote support solution?

Yes. Any Colorado provider or agency can get Vista Enterprise™, the remote support solution, which includes VistaLink™, the technology. Like an EHR or payroll system, getting it needs no approval from the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), Health First Colorado, or anyone else.

Billing is a separate question. It depends on the program, the service, your agency’s provider status, and each person’s plan. The rest of this page walks through every place remote support fits in Colorado.

Where does remote support fit in Colorado?

Setting or programHow technology is usually paidWhat to know
Community First Choice (CFC), the member’s own homeThe CFC Remote Supports benefit, which includes the technologyMember chooses the provider
Provider-owned, provider-controlled or congregate settingsThe agency’s own budgetColorado Medicaid does not reimburse Remote Supports there
ICF/IIDThe facility’s own costFederal staffing floor stays
Nursing homes and assisted livingThe facility’s own costResident privacy rules apply
Home care agenciesThe agency’s own costSupport between visits
Any agency, any settingThe agency’s own budgetNo approval needed to buy

What does Colorado’s Remote Supports benefit include?

Colorado’s Remote Supports rule, 10 CCR 2505-10 section 8.7544, makes Remote Supports a covered benefit for members enrolled in CFC. Under the rule:

  • Live support with daily tasks. Remote Supports means staff at a Monitoring Base who engage with the member through live two-way communication, giving prompts, coaching and virtual supervision with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, at home or in the community.
  • The member’s choice. Remote Supports is approved only when it is the member’s preference and will reduce the assessed need for in-person care, and it is for members who have the capacity to use the system.
  • Awake staff. Remote Supports is provided in real time by awake staff, who have no other duties while providing it.
  • The member controls the devices. Devices used for communication can be moved by the member to a location of their choice. Interactions are on demand, scheduled, or set off by a sensor, as the member agrees in their Remote Supports Service Plan.
  • Training and an off switch. The provider trains the member, with regular confirmation that the member knows how to turn systems on and off, and keeps a written protocol for when the member asks for the equipment to be turned off.
  • It does not overlap. Remote Supports is not provided at the same time as, or as a duplicate of, another HCBS service, is not used for services authorized as telehealth, and does not replace informal support.

What has to happen before remote support starts in Colorado?

  1. Person-centered planning. The member’s need for Remote Supports is identified through person-centered planning with their Case Manager at the local Case Management Agency.
  2. A sufficiency decision. The member, their Case Manager and the Remote Supports provider the member selects decide whether Remote Supports is enough for the member’s health and welfare.
  3. A Remote Supports Service Plan. The provider meets with the member and writes the plan, which goes to the Case Manager: where the service happens, the tasks, the devices, who the member allows the provider to share information with, a safety plan with emergency contacts, and an up-to-date list of Backup Support Persons.
  4. Backup people are named. A Backup Support Person can be unpaid, such as a family member or friend the member selects, or paid, from an agency provider. When the member asks for in-person help, the Backup Support Person comes in a reasonable time that the member’s team agrees on, and the Remote Supports provider keeps that time in its written records.
  5. Installation and training. Trained people install and test the equipment, and the member is trained to use it.

How does Colorado pay for remote support?

Your agency gets Vista Enterprise™ directly, as its own remote support solution. Colorado then has one way to pay for the enabling technology a person uses:

From the agency’s own budget. Any agency can get Vista Enterprise™ as its own remote support solution, whether or not it bills a service. This is the route for ICFs, group and provider-owned settings, nursing homes, assisted living and home care agencies.

1. The CFC Remote Supports benefit. For a member enrolled in Community First Choice, Colorado pays the Remote Supports provider the member selects. Payment covers installation and equipment purchase and the ongoing Remote Supports service, in units on HCPF’s fee schedule and billing manuals. Internet access, phone lines and cell phone plans are not part of the benefit. Remote Supports in provider-owned, provider-controlled or congregate settings is not reimbursed by Colorado Medicaid.

Sources, checked October 25, 2026: 10 CCR 2505-10 section 8.7544, Remote Supports, effective June 30, 2025; HCPF, Remote Supports; HCPF, Community First Choice; HCPF Operational Memo 25-042, State SLS and Community First Choice.

How do consent and privacy work in Colorado?

The person supported decides whether remote support is used and where devices go, with help from the people they choose. The Person-Centered Support Plan is built with the member and their Case Manager, and the Remote Supports Service Plan is written by the provider with the member. When the person has a guardian or authorized representative, that person takes part in consent. Remote Supports is approved only when it is the member’s preference, and the member agrees in the Remote Supports Service Plan to how and when interactions happen. The member is regularly shown how to turn systems on and off, and the provider has a protocol for when the member asks for the equipment to be turned off. The member can say no or withdraw consent at any time, and consent is revisited whenever the plan changes. The agency’s own trained team responds and decides, following the plan.

Colorado’s rule says “Video or audio monitoring and recording is not allowed,” and devices used for communication shall not be mounted in a bedroom or bathroom and must be able to be moved by the member to a location of their choice. No cameras are required in bedrooms, bathrooms or other personal spaces.

What if our staffing stays the same, as in an ICF or a fully staffed group home?

An agency in Colorado can keep every in-person shift and still use remote support, because technology can raise quality even with full staff.

Even a fully staffed overnight shift cannot be in every room at once, stay fully alert through every hour of the night, or carry every detail from one shift to the next. When nothing answers those human limits, they quietly become limits on the outcomes people supported can reach. That is a limit of people, not a failing of staff.

Enabling technology for human services helps with those gaps without replacing anyone. It gives trained people better information and more of their time for the moments that need a person in the room.

  • Fewer night checks that wake people up. For people whose plans do not call for hands-on checks through the night, a door opening on a schedule interrupts sleep and privacy. Non-wearable sensors the person agreed to can let overnight staff know when something may need a person. Whether a plan moves away from scheduled checks is decided through the person’s plan, by the person and their team, with input from the agency’s own nurse or clinician.
  • Better information. Plain-language daily reports on sleep, activity and safety events give nurses and the team a fuller picture than a shift note alone.
  • Closing gaps in data and judgment. A steady record across shifts means handoffs rest on more than memory, and a change that is hard to read in the middle of the night comes to a trained person with the facts in front of them.

Know the limits.

  • Federal ICF rules set the staffing floor. In an intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ICF/IID), federal rules require responsible direct care staff on duty around the clock when people are present, awake in some living units, plus minimum direct care staff ratios. Remote support adds to on-site staff. It does not replace them.
  • Privacy comes first. Federal rules require ICFs to give each person the opportunity for personal privacy. CMS guidance for surveyors says video or audio never takes the place of staff. No cameras are required in bedrooms, bathrooms or other personal spaces. Non-wearable sensors fit that approach.
  • The facility pays. An ICF/IID is paid as a facility, not through a person’s waiver plan, so an ICF that uses Vista Enterprise™ pays for it as its own operating cost.
  • ICF terms apply. In an ICF/IID, the person’s plan is the Individual Program Plan (IPP), developed by an interdisciplinary team that includes the person and the qualified intellectual disability professional (QIDP). A move away from scheduled night checks is decided by that team, including the person and their legal guardian where they have one, with input from the facility’s own nurse, and written into the IPP. If the change could affect the person’s protection or rights, the facility’s specially constituted committee reviews it, and it goes ahead only with written informed consent from the client, their legal guardian, or a parent if the client is a minor.
  • In Colorado, Remote Supports is a CFC benefit that is not reimbursed in provider-owned, provider-controlled or congregate settings, so an ICF does not bill it.
  • Group homes and privacy. Federal home and community-based settings rules give each person privacy in their sleeping or living unit. Any limit on that must be based on a specific assessed need, written into the person’s plan, and agreed to with informed consent.

Can nursing homes and assisted living in Colorado use remote support?

Yes. Nursing homes and assisted living communities get Vista Enterprise™ the same way any agency does, and the facility’s own trained team responds and decides.

  • Nursing homes. Federal rules give each resident a right to personal privacy and to be free from restraints that are not needed to treat medical symptoms, and require the facility to give each resident adequate supervision and assistance devices to prevent accidents. Better information can help staff see who needs them without waking everyone. Each resident decides whether devices go in and can say no, and a resident representative decides for the resident only as far as the resident, a court or state law gives them that role. CMS guidance for surveyors treats devices that alert staff when a resident moves as position change alarms, so the facility’s care team checks, in each care plan, that a device does not keep a resident from moving freely or disturb their sleep. Remote support does not prevent falls, and it is not a promise that every fall will be noticed. A trained person on the facility’s own team decides each step. Nursing homes are paid as facilities, so Vista Enterprise™ is the facility’s own purchase. In-person staffing rules do not change.
  • Assisted living. Assisted living is licensed by each state, not under the federal nursing home rules, so each community follows its own state’s licensing rules for resident rights, privacy and consent. Where Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) pay for a resident’s services there, the federal HCBS settings rules also apply, including privacy in the person’s sleeping or living unit, a door they can lock, and a say in choosing any roommate. Technology placed with each resident’s consent gives staff better information between scheduled visits.
  • In Colorado, nursing homes and assisted living communities follow the state’s own licensing rules alongside the federal ones.

How does remote support help home care agencies in Colorado?

Home care agencies send aides into people’s homes for set hours. Between visits, no one from the agency is there. Remote support helps with that gap: the person keeps their privacy, and the agency’s own trained team can learn when something may need attention and decide who should go.

  • Better visits. Aides arrive knowing how the night went.
  • Earlier notice. Changes in routine can show up before they become a crisis.
  • In Colorado, home care agencies follow the state’s own licensing rules.

Who else can remote support help in Colorado?

It is not all about disability. Remote support is enabling technology for human services as a whole. It works for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), older adults, people with physical disabilities, people recovering from an illness or injury, faith-based organizations that run health ministries, and the staff and families who support them.

How does VistaLink™ fit Colorado’s rules?

VistaLink™ uses non-wearable sensors and a display in the home to send events to your agency’s own trained team, and it never acts alone. The agency’s own trained team responds and decides, following each person’s plan.

Your agency stays the provider. To bill CFC Remote Supports, an agency enrolls with HCPF as a Remote Supports provider (Specialty 756), with HCPF’s Remote Supports Training Certificate, its own signed attestation that the technology it uses for Remote Supports meets federal privacy law, and the required policies. It then follows the Remote Supports Service Plan, Backup Support Person, installation and setting rules. Sources: 10 CCR 2505-10 section 8.7544.E.1; HCPF OM 24-037; HCPF HCBS provider specialty code list.

Vista is not the direct service provider. The agency or facility is. Vista Enterprise™ supports the people who plan and give support: the person, their family or guardian where they have one, the provider’s own team, and any case manager or coordinator. It helps them follow the rights, privacy and consent rules that apply in that setting and state, and build each person’s plan around their own wants and needs. The agency’s own trained team responds and decides.

For states and government agencies

Vista can also work with the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), Health First Colorado, and with other state and government agencies, for example through a procurement or a contract. Any single agency, in any state or anywhere in the world, can already get Vista Enterprise™ with no state approval.

Remote support for states and government agencies

What does remote support look like for a Colorado agency? (composite example)

This is a composite example built from common situations. It is not a real person.

A woman enrolled in Community First Choice lives in her own apartment. With her Case Manager she decides she would rather have prompts for cooking and her evening routine from a distance than more in-person visits. She selects a Remote Supports provider, and together they write her Remote Supports Service Plan, naming her sister and a paid agency backup as Backup Support Persons. She chooses non-wearable sensors and a display in the home, placed where she directs, and learns to turn them off. When an event comes in, a trained staff member at her provider checks in the way her plan says, and calls a backup person when she needs someone in person.

Questions and answers

Can any Colorado agency buy a remote support solution?

Yes. Any Colorado provider or agency can get Vista Enterprise™, which includes VistaLink™. Like an EHR, it needs no HCPF approval. Billing follows each program’s rules.

Where is Remote Supports covered in Colorado now?

Remote Supports is a covered benefit for members enrolled in Community First Choice (CFC), a Health First Colorado State Plan option that started July 1, 2025.

Who can use Community First Choice in Colorado?

Health First Colorado members who are eligible under the State Plan and meet an institutional level of care, or who are enrolled in an HCBS waiver and receive at least one waiver service a month. Members must also meet the financial requirements for full Medicaid benefits.

When is Remote Supports approved in Colorado?

Only when it is the member’s preference and will reduce the assessed need for in-person care. The member, their Case Manager and the selected Remote Supports provider decide together whether it is enough for the member’s health and welfare.

Can Remote Supports be used in a group home in Colorado?

No. Colorado Medicaid does not pay for Remote Supports in provider-owned, provider-controlled or congregate settings. An agency in those settings can still get Vista Enterprise™ with its own budget.

What is a Backup Support Person in Colorado?

The person who responds in an emergency, when the member otherwise needs help, or when the remote supports equipment stops working. Backup support can be unpaid, from a family member, friend or other person the member selects, or paid, from an agency provider.

Can a Colorado ICF, nursing home or assisted living facility use remote support?

Yes, as its own tool alongside on-site staff. Federal and state staffing rules still apply in full, and the facility pays for Vista Enterprise™ as its own cost. No cameras are required in bedrooms, bathrooms or other personal spaces.

Who responds when remote support is in place?

Your agency’s own trained team responds and decides, following each person’s plan. VistaLink™ never acts alone.

Is remote support in Colorado only for disability services?

No. It fits any human service where staff cannot be everywhere at once: disability services, older adults, assisted living, nursing homes, home care and faith-based health ministries.

Book a demo

See how your Colorado agency could run its own remote support with Vista Enterprise™ and VistaLink™.

Book a demo

Related pages