The rapidly increasing senior care market has introduced a plethora of new concepts and terms that may be easily confused. Several people believe that life care and continuing care communities have been the same thing. As a result, they make use of these terms interchangeably. However, life care has been actually a subset of continuing care. While the offerings may appear similar at the initial appearance, you should not be fooled. Let us look at the various differences between the two. Let us begin with CCRC or continuing care retirement community.
CCRC and life care communities
CCRC has been known to offer contractual agreements to several people. The age of the people should be over sixty years of age or older. It would provide them with various services, mostly on the same campus. These kinds of services would be inclusive of independent living, skilled nursing, assisted living and at times memory care.
Even though all CCRCs have been known to offer a wide variety of services, a majority of contracts would other care providers would be required to administer the higher levels of care. It would be located off campus. It implies that residents who move in at assisted living levels would gain access to higher levels care as the needs increase. However, they may be required to move off campus to access those services.
Some contracts need payment of entrance fee and monthly fee. On the other hand, some contracts would be inclusive of purchasing the resident’s apartment in the community. A will or deed could be used to transfer it to their heir similar to any real estate purchase. However, it would be pertinent to mention here that not all contracts would entail purchase of real estate. Under these terms, the seniors would become residents of the community, without owning any real estate under the contract.
What do life care communities have to offer?
Life care communities would cater similar variety of care to the resident for life. However, the biggest difference has been residents becoming financially unstable to pay their monthly care fee would be reduced by the community. Nonetheless, the service would be similar and without interruptions in care or change in priority. The residents would be guaranteed similar quality of care and access to adequate care from day one to the end of their life. It would not be hampered by their personal financial situation. Moreover, a majority of life care communities would be offering health care services on the same campus.