PACE in Chicago: How Illinois's New All-Inclusive Elder Care Program Works in Cook County

By Chicago Senior Advisor Care Team · September 28, 2026

What the PACE Program Is and Why Illinois Just Brought It to Cook County

PACE, the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, is a federal model that Illinois only began rolling out in mid-2024 through the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS), which now administers it statewide. The idea behind PACE is straightforward but different from anything else in Illinois's senior-care system: instead of choosing between staying home with piecemeal services or moving into a nursing facility, a PACE participant gets one integrated program, doctors, nurses, physical therapy, transportation, prescriptions, adult day care, and home care, all coordinated through a single PACE center near their neighborhood, while still sleeping in their own bed. Illinois built out five PACE service regions to start: West Chicago, South Chicago, Southern Cook County, Peoria, and the East St. Louis metro area, which means Chicago and its immediate suburbs got PACE access before most of the rest of the state.

For families who have spent months untangling Illinois's Community Care Program (CCP) through the Department on Aging, or wondering whether a parent's income disqualifies them from the Supportive Living Program (SLP), PACE is a genuinely different animal because it is not a Medicaid waiver bolted onto existing home-care services. It is its own fully capitated program: the PACE organization receives a set monthly payment per participant from Medicare and Medicaid and, in exchange, takes on full financial and clinical responsibility for that person's care, including hospital stays and nursing home stays if it ever comes to that. That structure gives the PACE team a direct incentive to keep a Cook County participant healthy and living at home rather than cycling through emergency rooms, which is a meaningfully different set of incentives than a fee-for-service Medicaid plan creates.

Who Actually Qualifies for PACE in Illinois

PACE eligibility is narrower than CCP eligibility, and that's by design. Nationally, and in Illinois, a PACE applicant must be at least 55 years old, live in a designated PACE service area (which for Chicago means falling within one of the specific zip codes a local PACE organization covers), and be certified by the state as needing a nursing-home level of care under the same kind of functional assessment Illinois uses for Medicaid long-term-care eligibility. Crucially, the applicant also has to be able to live safely in the community with PACE's support at the time they enroll; PACE is built for people who are frail enough to qualify for a nursing home but stable enough, with the right wraparound services, to stay out of one. A caregiver's willingness and ability to help matters too, since PACE supplements a home caregiving arrangement rather than replacing the need for one entirely.

This is where PACE differs sharply from the Supportive Living Program, which houses residents in a licensed assisted-living-style building, and from CCP, which layers in-home services on top of whatever housing a senior already has without taking on full medical risk. A Cook County senior who has already been through a Determination of Need (DON) assessment for SLP or CCP has effectively already done half the paperwork PACE requires, since Illinois uses a comparable nursing-home-level-of-care standard across these programs. Families should also know that enrollment is voluntary and can be disenrolled from at any time, and that a participant keeps Medicare and Medicaid eligibility throughout; PACE does not replace those programs, it becomes the vehicle through which they're delivered.

The Chicago-Area PACE Organizations Now Enrolling Participants

As of the current rollout, five organizations hold PACE designations covering Chicago and southern Cook County, and they are not new entrants, most were already established local health providers before taking on PACE. On the West Side, Lawndale Christian Health Center, a federally qualified health center that has served North Lawndale since 1984, now runs a PACE program covering a swath of zip codes stretching from Chicago's West Side into nearby Cicero and Berwyn (60608, 60612, 60623, 60624, and 60804). Kinship PACE of Illinois covers a different Northwest Side and near-suburban footprint, including Portage Park, Jefferson Park, and Norridge-area zip codes (60634, 60639, 60641, 60647, 60656, among others).

On the South Side, Habitat Health at Annie's Place enrolls participants across zip codes running through Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Chatham, Auburn Gresham, and South Shore (60615, 60616, 60619, 60620, 60621, 60628, 60637, 60649, and more), while Esperanza Health Centers, a federally qualified health center rooted in the Gage Park and Chicago Lawn communities since 2004, serves a Southwest Side footprint that includes Little Village and parts of Cicero. Further south, BoldAge PACE covers roughly thirty zip codes across southern Cook County's suburbs. Because coverage is defined zip code by zip code rather than by city or township, the single most useful first step for any Chicago-area family is contacting the PACE organization nearest a parent's home directly to confirm the exact address qualifies, since two houses a few blocks apart can fall on opposite sides of a service-area boundary.

How PACE Is Paid For and What It Costs a Cook County Family

For a participant who is dual-eligible, meaning enrolled in both Medicare and full Illinois Medicaid, which describes most PACE enrollees, PACE covers essentially the entire scope of care with no separate monthly premium and no copays for PACE-arranged services. Medicare and HFS jointly pay the PACE organization a monthly capitated rate per participant, and that single payment is expected to cover everything from primary care visits and prescriptions to hospitalization and, if it ever becomes necessary, nursing home placement arranged and paid for by the same PACE organization. This is a meaningfully different financial structure than the Supportive Living Program, where a Medicaid-eligible resident still pays room-and-board out of their own income while Medicaid covers services separately.

A senior who qualifies for Medicaid's nursing-home-level-of-care standard but has income or assets that would otherwise require a Medicaid spend-down, or who is eligible for Medicare but not Medicaid, can still enroll in PACE privately, paying a monthly premium set by the PACE organization to cover the Medicaid portion of the capitated rate out of pocket; nationally these private-pay PACE premiums often run into several thousand dollars a month, comparable to a mid-range Illinois nursing home rate, which is why most private-pay families use PACE only after a Medicaid spend-down or asset-planning conversation with an elder-law attorney. Families weighing PACE against Illinois's 2026 assisted living range of roughly $4,500 to $6,500 a month should remember PACE is not an assisted living substitute; it is a medical and social-support program layered onto wherever the participant already lives, whether that's their own Norwood Park bungalow or a family member's home in Oak Lawn.

Choosing Between PACE, the Community Care Program, and Supportive Living

For a Cook County family trying to decide which of Illinois's home-and-community-based options fits, the honest answer depends on how medically involved a parent's needs already are. CCP, run through the Illinois Department on Aging and the Chicago-area Area Agencies on Aging (the City of Chicago Area Agency on Aging within the Department of Family & Support Services for city residents, AgeOptions for suburban Cook County), is the right starting point for a senior who mainly needs homemaker help, adult day service, or case management and does not yet need the full medical wraparound PACE provides. The Supportive Living Program makes sense for a senior who wants to move into a licensed assisted-living-style residence with Medicaid covering the service component, which PACE does not offer since it is not a housing program at all.

PACE tends to be the better fit specifically for a senior who has already reached, or is close to, a nursing-home-level of medical need, whose family wants to avoid institutional placement, and who lives inside one of the five current Illinois PACE service regions. Because Illinois's rollout is still young, families outside those zip codes, including much of DuPage, Lake, Kane, Will, and McHenry counties, do not yet have a PACE option at all and should default to CCP, SLP, or a hospital discharge planner's recommendation instead. Anyone weighing PACE after a hospital stay at a facility like Cook County Health's Stroger Hospital, where discharge planners are increasingly aware of the new program, should ask the discharge team directly whether PACE is available at the patient's home address before assuming it is, since the zip-code boundaries genuinely do vary block by block in ways a general web search won't catch.

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Common questions

Is the PACE program available everywhere in Chicago and Cook County?

No. Illinois's PACE rollout, administered by the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, currently covers five defined service regions statewide, and within Cook County that means specific zip codes assigned to specific PACE organizations rather than blanket city or countywide coverage. Lawndale Christian Health Center, Kinship PACE of Illinois, Habitat Health at Annie's Place, and Esperanza Health Centers each cover different, sometimes overlapping-looking but distinct, zip code lists across Chicago's West and South Sides, while BoldAge PACE covers a separate set of zip codes across southern Cook County suburbs. Two homes a few blocks apart can fall on opposite sides of a boundary, so the only reliable way to confirm eligibility is to call the PACE organization nearest the parent's address and ask directly, rather than assuming coverage based on neighborhood name alone.

How much does PACE cost if my parent has Medicare but not full Illinois Medicaid?

A participant who has Medicare but doesn't qualify for full Medicaid can still enroll in PACE, but will generally pay a monthly premium set by the PACE organization to cover the portion of the capitated rate that Medicaid would otherwise fund, plus a separate premium for the Medicare Part D drug benefit if applicable. Nationally, that private-pay premium often runs into the thousands of dollars monthly, in a similar range to Illinois nursing home costs, which is why many families in this situation first explore whether a Medicaid spend-down would qualify the parent for full dual-eligible status before enrolling privately. An elder-law attorney or the PACE organization's own enrollment counselor can walk through exact current premium figures, since PACE organizations set and adjust these rates individually rather than following one statewide number.

Can my parent keep seeing their own doctor if they enroll in PACE?

Generally, no, and this is one of the biggest adjustments families make when choosing PACE. Because a PACE organization takes on full financial and clinical responsibility for a participant's care under a capitated payment, participants typically receive primary care from the PACE organization's own interdisciplinary team, often at a PACE day center, rather than continuing with an outside primary care physician the family has used for years. Specialist referrals, hospital admissions, and prescriptions are all coordinated through that same PACE team. Families who have a long-standing relationship with a specific Chicago-area physician, particularly a specialist managing a complex condition, should ask the PACE organization directly how that relationship would be handled before enrolling, since this tradeoff, comprehensive coordinated care in exchange for giving up outside provider choice, is central to how the PACE model works and isn't negotiable case by case.

What happens if a PACE participant eventually needs full-time nursing home care?

The PACE organization remains financially and clinically responsible for the participant even if nursing home placement becomes necessary, since nursing home care is one of the services covered under the capitated payment PACE receives from Medicare and Illinois Medicaid. In practice, this means the PACE team, not the family, arranges and pays for the nursing home stay, and continues coordinating the participant's overall care rather than discharging them from the program. This is different from CCP or Supportive Living, where a move to a nursing home typically means exiting that program and separately qualifying for Medicaid nursing home coverage through HFS. Families should still confirm which specific Cook County or Illinois nursing facilities a given PACE organization contracts with, since that network is set by each PACE organization rather than being open to any IDPH-licensed nursing home statewide.