Department

Assisted Living Column

The ins and outs of ALCs

Financing

ALCs are primarily paid privately through individual's own resources. In recent years these resources have taken a significant hit as home values and personal assets have markedly lessened due to the weakened economy. However, beyond one's personal resources there are a growing number of avenues to fund ALCs. Some of these include LTC insurance or state programs that look to avoid the expense of skilled nursing facilities some of which can cost 3–4 times that of an ALC.

Congress had attempted

Assisted care

Of course even with a source of funds either personal or public, older adults still need to decide if a particular ALC is right for them. To that end, an increasing number of older adults are relying on the variety and quality of Clinical Services to base their decision. These services typically fall into three categories: acute care, maintaining, and chronic disease management. On the chronic disease state management side these services include the management of diabetes, CHF, COPD and

Reporting quality measures

Many of these care elements are included in the quality measures being reporting by ALCs. This is especially needed because one can not always get a sense of the quality of care services through a simple walk through of the facility. So while touring an ALC it is critical to get a sense of the environment, given the significance of this investment and life changing move many older adults will need to look to quantitative quality assessments of the facilities in which they are interested. To

Avoiding the hospital

Once an older adult has made the decision to become a resident of an ALC, most hope that they will be able to age in place rather than be forced to leave for another site of care. This is one of the founding principles of AL, to promote aging in place. Despite this, an extremely high percentage of residents are unable to do that, instead being transferred to another facility. But before the decision is made to transfer a resident out of their AL home because the facility does not have the