Ed note: There is a natural tension between Leading Age, the industry lobby group for CCRC’s, and WaCCRA, the residents voice for the state of Washington (NaCCRA is the national organization). Years ago when I was unsuccessfully trying to have AEDs installed at Skyline, I called Steve Maag JD, a lawyer based in Washington – though a native Seattleite. During his 12 years at LeadingAge, Steve was the “go-to” expert on all things related to life plan communities and assisted living. He told me that he gives a lecture to CCRC Executives titled, “This is not your grandma’s CCRC.” He felt that management needed to respect and utilize the input and knowledge of many of the very accomplished residents moving into these facilities–not to infantilize residents as they age.
I asked Steve about “best practices” for CCRCs in terms of CPR and use of AEDs for residents who would wish for cardiac resuscitation. He said that there are no such guidelines and that “if you’ve seen one CCRC, you’ve only seen one CCRC–they’re all different.”
As we all know, the best way for a CCRC to thrive is to have the apartments fully occupied, and the residents and staff happy and engaged. The goals and success for management and residents are basically intertwined.
But how about our financial picture? Tax form 990s are available but audits and details are not easy to come by. Regulation is strongly resisted by Leading age. Please consider joining WaCCRA and learning of their actions and successes over the past several years in making the residents voices heard.
Bob Curtis, 88, a resident of an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, N.Y., that has declared bankruptcy.
By Paula Span in the NYT (thanks to Tim B.)
Three years ago, when Bob and Sandy Curtis moved into an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, N.Y., he thought they had found the best possible elder care solution.
In exchange for a steep entrance fee — about $840,000, funded by the sale of the Long Island house they had owned for nearly 50 years — they would have care for the rest of their lives at the Harborside. They selected a contract from several options that set stable monthly fees at about $6,000 for both of them and would refund half the entrance fee to their estate after their deaths.
“This was the final chapter,” Mr. Curtis, 88, said. “That was the deal I made.”
C.C.R.C.s, or life plan communities, provide levels of increasing care on a single campus, from independent and assisted living to nursing homes and memory care. Unlike most senior living facilities, they’re predominantly nonprofit.
More than 1,900 C.C.R.C.s house about 900,000 Americans, according to LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit senior housing providers. Some communities offer lower and higher refunds, many avoid buy-in fees altogether and operate as rentals, and others are hybrids.
For the Curtises, the Harborside offered reassurance. Mr. Curtis, an industrial engineer who works as a consultant, took a comfortable one-bedroom apartment in the independent living wing. “It was a vibrant community,” he said. “Meals. Amenities. A gym.” (continued)