September 4, 2025 • 44 mins
Listen in as host Steve Kuker, President of Senior Care Consulting, has breaking news from Tom Brokenjaw that you don’t want to miss! Then, Steve reviews the primary levels of care available at senior care communities, what they provide, and their average monthly costs. #SeniorCare #SeniorCareLive #SeniorCareConsulting #SeniorLiving #KansasCitySeniorCare #SeniorCarePlacement #SeniorCareAdvisor #Franchise #SeniorCareFranchise (800) 331-6445
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education, and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's senior care consultant,
Steve Keecker, Hello and welcome to Senior Care Live.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Steve Keeker, your senior care consultant, and I really
appreciate you tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Say, hang on, we have a late breaking story here.
Oh oh, it's Tom broken jaw. Tom, You're my favorite newsman.
Thank you for legal reasons. Assist Tom broken Jaw. There
you I have a late breaking story that I think
is going to be important to all of your listeners.
Oh across the world.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh wow, Now okay, So it must be something to
do with Israel or the Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Or hang on a tariff. Hang. I gotta have music.
I gotta have late breaking music, folks. Yeah, ok, yeah,
that's more like it. I'm Tom Rokenshaw with you're a
late breaking story.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I can't wait with baited breath?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Is that what that smell?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Okay, Steve, I'm happy to tell you that Travis Kelcey
and Taylor Swift are engaged.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
No they are not.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, yes they are. And you're just breaking this Steve.
This is a big story. Okay, there's no expiration date
on it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh okay, because I think I think I heard something
about that maybe last twoday.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Like it's a big story. And finally the Chiefs, fans
and Swifties are united. I don't think we're gonna call
them chiefties. Yeah, I'm gonna see that, Steve. I know
it was four days ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is
the biggest story since Epstein, since Cracker Barrel, since New
Coke for crying out with don't mess with the coke.
(01:50):
This is a future lifestyle for a lot of people.
I'm Tom Rokanjaw. That is, you're breaking those reports. Now
back to Senior Carol Live with Steve Kicker.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, thank you, thank you, mister broken Jaw. I appreciate
my my favorite, my favorite newsman of all time. So
and what a surprise that he dropped by the station again.
He wished me a happy anniversary, I don't know, a
couple of weeks ago. So that was very nice. So anyway,
all right, so look hope hopefully you had you got
(02:23):
a kick out of that. Look, we're broadcasting our our
our our home station here is in Kansas City. We
happen to be uh, we happen to have a pretty
good football team around here. Travis Kelcey and Taylor Swift.
It's been just quite the uproar, and now it is official,
she said, yes, and everybody's just kind of giddy about it.
(02:43):
So anyways, it's kind of cool. So all right, well
let's move on to information, education and resources for seniors
and their caregivers. How about that? So uh, and we'll
get off the Travis Taylor topic. So I want to
I talked today about the levels of care that could
(03:04):
be found in a number of senior care communities. I'm
gonna break it down and I'm going to explain exactly
what they offer, what they don't offer. I am going
to review the average monthly cost. You might want to
grip tight to your wheel if you're driving listening to
that part, or you know, don't spit your coffee out
(03:25):
or choke on your whatever you're eating at this time.
The stuff is expensive. Okay, So we're gonna go through
all of that, and I might even if I have
time later on, I might even go through a couple
of gray areas that really trip people up quite a bit.
So before we jump into all of the different levels
of care available in the market, a super quick recap
and I just covered this, I think last week or
(03:46):
the week before. What to determine before ever thinking about
beginning of your search. You've got to know the level
of care that will be required, the type of care,
the payment method, how are you going to pay for this, location, parameters,
and any personal preferences needs. But once you have that,
you're going to go out into the market and you're
going to check out all of these different options and
figure out the right one for you. So the entry
(04:08):
point is independent living. And let me just say that
independent living is a great option for a lot of people,
but there is no care provided by the independent living staff.
There is no licensure for independent living period Now, they
(04:29):
may have an on site home care provider that can
come down to your apartment and help you with some
different daily tasks, et cetera. But an independent living community
does not hold a licensure. It's an apartment they provide
at least typically you'll have the main meal each day,
(04:52):
provided maybe a couple of meals per day. Your independent
living apartment has a fully equipped kitchen. You can cook
anything you want, anytime you want. They have transportation if
you don't want to drive out in the bad weather.
Lots of socialization opportunities, but you are fully on your
(05:13):
own in independent living. So that would be attractive for
someone who lives in a house. Maybe they're just using
a small percentage of the house and the normal responsibility
I wanted. I didn't want to call it a burden.
At some point, it does become a burden, right, the
burden of home ownership and home ownership responsibility becomes burdensome,
(05:38):
you know, so dealing with you know, water heaters and
roofs and mowing the lawn and scooping the snow and
just just all the stuff, and the HVAC goes out,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, at some point,
that's just like, you know, I need to get out
from underneath this house. This thing's telling me. And what
(06:01):
you do is you move. Typically it's a downsize at
least a little bit or maybe a lot. You move
to an independent living community is really for a lifestyle change.
You let your hair down and they're going to do
some of these things for you. You never have to worry
about anything that's home ownership related ever. Again, you don't
(06:21):
even pay utilities, you don't pay taxes, you don't pay
homeowners insurance, and man, that keeps going up every year.
It's killing me, right, And you don't have to You
don't even have to change the light bulb. Okay, they've
got all of these things covered for you. They do
some of the cooking, and so it's just a lifestyle change, okay,
And that's very, very attractive for a lot of people.
(06:44):
So that's really the starting point again understanding there is
no care provided at the independent living level, all right,
So then the next primary option. I wish you could
see my I'm going to be doing a lot of
presentations this fall. I'm getting back into the swing of
(07:07):
presenting to churches and civic groups and chambers of commerce
and large companies and client bases all over the country
for financial advisors and all of those sort of things. Right,
So if you could see my graphic, it makes more sense.
But just try to visualize this. So I have independent
(07:30):
living off to the left and then in the center
taking up a little over half of the real estate
on my slide is assisted living. I'll explain that in
a second. So assisted living is a social model. What
do I mean by that? Mainly, what I mean is
(07:53):
it's not a medical model. It's not a medical offering,
but there's a tremendous amount of support in helping you
with your If you hear this term ADL's ADL, I
try not to speak in acronymology because that's irritating. You'll
hear someone rattling off all these ADLs like everybody's supposed
(08:13):
to understand what the heck they're talking about. Now, now look
at that. I'm like these people here, they have no
clue what you're talking about. Stop that right. So in
ADL is an activity of daily living, so they can
help you minimally or fully your bathing, dressing, grooming, and toileting.
(08:33):
Those are the kind of the big areas. They distribute
your medications. They completely manage that for you. Order it,
change up medications, get the new ones in, get rid
of the old ones, and then they literally hand them
to you at the right time, so you're getting your
meds properly and on time. They can help out with
incontinence support to a point to a point. If it
(08:57):
gets too far out of hand, you're not able to
handle that, they can keep up with it. That's going
to be one of the threshold barriers there, or lines
in the sand, if you will, for assisted living, but
they can help you out with that. They make all
of your meals, snacks, and hydration. At this point, they
have a full slate of activities for meaningful social engagement.
(09:21):
Doctors make house calls, which is great. They'll come right
to your apartment in the assisted living community. If you
have your own doctor, need to see a specialist, there's
transportation to get out to see them. So there is
a tremendous amount of support at the assisted living level
(09:42):
of care. I'll tell you what those activities of daily
living bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, using the restroom,
and those are those. Look, we do these things. We're
just on autopilot. We just automatically do these for decades,
decades in decades, until at one point maybe your arthritis
(10:04):
prohibits you from bending over far enough to put your
socks on, and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't
put myself. I'm going to need some help with that.
Something as simple as that. Okay, it's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
They can help you put your socks on, in your
shoes on, and maybe you have everything else covered. Okay,
So that's just one really super small example. But that's
the independent living and the assisted living level of care.
Coming up next, I'll review the long term care level
of care. But first, the Senior Care Live question of
the week, all assisted living communities care for residents with dementia?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Is that state a true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:05):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find a
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because it is. I invite you to reach out to
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(11:27):
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Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. All right, back to the Senior Care Live
question of the week. All assisted living communities care for
residents with dementia? Does that statement true or false? And
(12:28):
the answer is true. The answer is true. But let
me just unpack that a little bit more. There are
a lot of residents with early early stage Alzheimer's mild dementia,
kind of earlier in the game. We're pleasantly confused, might
(12:50):
be a little forgetful, we may repeat ourselves, and some
of these things okay, just no big deal. And the
assisted living level of care and assistant living community can
care for those folks, and they do all day long,
every day. I'm going to talk a little bit more
about memory care in a little bit. But as these
(13:12):
as these issues begin to I guess, accelerate. As you
start to accelerate into some of these issues where you
have a cognitive decline, some of the issues may cause
the need for a special memory care unit or memory
(13:33):
care neighborhood memory care part of the building, and not
all of them have that, and that just makes everything
really confusing. So anyway, let's get back to the levels
of care available out in the marketplace. We talked about
independent living. It's there's no care provided there, but it's
a great lifestyle change for a lot of folks. Then
(13:58):
I talked about assist it living level of care, a
social model that can help you minimally or fully with
your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, incontinent support, medications are managed
and distributed, all all of the stuff, right, it's not
a medical situation. And before I move to move on
(14:22):
to long term care, the assisted living level, every single
assisted living community has a threshold, every single one of them.
And if your care exceeds that threshold, you will be
asked to move. And I'm going to touch on that
here in just a little bit. All right, So let's
(14:44):
move on to the highest level of care. And you
know a lot of folks back in the day, we
call this a nursing home. How we're going to go
to the nursing home, or yeah, let's check out a
nursing home, et cetera, et cetera. The industry, the business,
they don't well, they don't like that word because it
comes with a lot of stereotype in their negative baggage. Okay,
(15:09):
So what they would rather refer and this is what
I refer to this level of care. I just call
it long term care. Some folks call it skilled nursing.
Some folks call it the health center, et cetera, et cetera. Okay,
And if you want to call it a nursing home,
I'm not mad at you. That's okay. You call it
whatever you want. I generally refer to it as long
(15:32):
term care. In the long term care level of care,
they provide all of the support of the assisted living level,
plus full medical care. They can help out with diabetic management,
insulin injections, pain management, and pain related injections, pain patches,
(15:55):
pain pumps. They can provide wound care. If someone has
any skins breakdown, we have a wound care need. They've
got urns and LPNs on staff. They can help out
with that. Hopefully get that skin breakdown, that wound care
all buttoned up and healed up for you. They can
manage a urinary catheter, take care of that. You got
(16:18):
to change them, you got to flush them. You've got
the leg bag or you have the urinary catheter bag
that might be attached to a wheelchair perhaps or maybe bedside.
They can help out and manage tube feeding if someone
has two feeding, and maybe even IV therapy. So they're
(16:38):
just and God bless them. But some residents are so
weak that they just can't help with their own movement,
and so maybe they've declined to the situation where they're
kind of dead weight, and you could be one hundred
pounds dead weight and kind of feels like three hundred
pounds when you're trying to pick them up, and you
(16:59):
need to be careful because you don't want to hurt
this person. You need to pick them up properly. So
it's going to take two staff or maybe even a
mechanical patient lift to help that person move safely and
comfortably from point A to point B. Okay, all those
things are provided in long term care. Now, you could
(17:22):
have a couple of those services provided at a few
assisted living communities. There are a few assisted living communities
I know of that can offer diabetic management with insulin injection.
There are a few assisted living communities that can offer
(17:42):
their staff to offer a two person transfer. Vast majority
of them do not do that. Okay, So long term
care is the medical model, and that is the highest
level of care for sure. All right, so let's go
ahead and complicate this a little more. In the assisted
(18:05):
living level of care. Remember I mentioned it takes up
a lot of real estate. It takes up probably about
two thirds a half to two thirds of my graphic Darren,
we need to start. We need to get some television
cameras into this stuff. This needs to be on YouTube
or something. I don't know. Anyway, we'll work on that next.
(18:27):
So you have assistant living on the left side, and
on the far right hand side you've got long term care.
So you've got that wide swath in the middle of
the page. Why is that, well at the assisted living
level of care. They're operated by a licensure, and the
(18:49):
licensure controls what you can do and must do and
must provide, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a lot
of leeway there. Oh, what do you mean, Steve. Okay, well,
I'll tell you. In the in the world of assistant living,
you could be leaning way over to the left. This
(19:10):
is my graphic. I wish I could show you way
over to the left where you're almost in the area
of independent living, and they just don't provide a lot
of a lot of support. They'll they'll provide some of
it a little bit, okay, but there it's all about marketing.
We have a young, vibrant, super active community come to
(19:34):
our assistant living community and have lots of fun, and
that's great. That that's fine. That's that's kind of what
they're going for. Some assist of living communities lean way
over to the right where they're approaching that long term care,
that nursing home level of care, and they bend over
backwards to keep you from having to move to long
(19:55):
term care. Okay, And there's more staffing and and a
lot more support. Oh and by the way, everything in
between I was just telling a client earlier this week
we started working together and I said, the challenge with
assisted living is you could go out and talk to
six different places, hear a different story at each place,
(20:17):
and they could all be right because there's just such
a wide path in that center lane for assisted living.
So that's that's why I think assisted living is the
second most difficult level of care if you don't know
what you're doing to try to figure out and wrap
your head around to try to find the right one.
(20:37):
And coming up next, a couple of more curveballs in
that center lane. Don't go away.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare live dot com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
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dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
(22:11):
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts of the program,
visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, so we're talking about the all of the
different levels of care that you could receive out in
the market. Of course, relative to senior care communities. We
(22:34):
talked a little bit about independent living. We talked about
assist of living and that wide lane in the center
where you have some assist of living communities that will
provide less care than others, or some that will provide
way more care than others, and everything in between. That
just makes that really really complicated because it's not a
(22:55):
standardized model. I guess that's the message. And then we
talked about the highest level of care, long term care,
also known by still a lot of folks as a
nursing home. That's that medical model. That is a standardized model,
that long term care. They all offer the same thing. Okay.
Now some do a much better job delivering than others. Okay,
(23:18):
but that's a very standardized model. Assists of living is not.
It's just not all right. So another curve ball in
the center lane. We have another licensure which I referred
to as a level of care. It's called a residential
care facility. Now around here our flagship station, Odyssey station
(23:44):
KNBZ AM and FM broadcasting out of Kansas City, we
have a residential care on the Kansas side and the
Missouri side, and Missouri start has to get a little
more fancy. They got r CF one and our CF
two on the Kansas site is just residential care facility RCF.
Now other parts of the country, I know, we have
(24:06):
different terminology, but a residential care facility is essentially and
not always you have all these exceptions. Is assisted living light,
if you will.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
They have a little bit of a higher level or
more independent group of residents. They don't need quite as
much help, but they need some help for sure. They
need their meds managed and their laundry done, and maybe
a little help with their activities of daily living. And
they need their all the meals cooked and provided little
(24:44):
oversight and supervision and safety and security. So residential care
facility generally speaking, is on the So if you looked
at my graphic, it's on that left hand side, a
lighter level of assistant living, if you will, and that's
not always okay, but generally speaking, that's it. Then on
(25:06):
the higher end, on the assisted living path, if you will,
kind of to the right hand side of my graphic,
we have something in these parts called home plus. What
this is and it is very popular on the coast.
I could see this one coming from a mile away.
(25:27):
That's one of the that's one of the big advantages
of living in the center of the entire nation. You
can see what's popular and what's trending on the coasts,
and it takes about five to ten years to work
its way to the center of the country. And I
could see this one coming from you know, years ahead,
(25:48):
miles away. So home plus is care provided to residents
living in a house. So generally, generally speaking, it's going
to be a ranch style house and you might have
four to six residents. Typically that'll top out at about
twelve residents in a ranch style house. Everyone has a bedroom.
(26:10):
You may have a master suite type of a situation
and en suite where you have the bath as part
of the you know, like a master bedroom has a
master bath right off the side of it. Some of
them may have their own bedroom and maybe two or
three residents might share a full bath on the hallway.
That kind of thing you talk about a homelike environment.
(26:33):
They've got that down. Usually. The staffing ratios are really
really great in Home Plus and so a lot of
times you'll have you know, you'll have a couple of
different staff for six or eight residents. That's pretty good.
And you don't have to walk down a one hundred
foot long hallway to check on someone might walk down
a thirty foot long hallway to check on someone. So
(26:55):
it's just it's just it's a really good fit for
a lot of folks. And I would say it's the
assisted living level on the higher end of it provided
to a small number of individuals living in a house.
It's fully licensed okay by the state. It's monitored, they
have surveys just like everyone else does. It's just a
(27:17):
different environment. It's a great fit for a lot of folks,
and other states don't have that carved out like home plus,
so they may just call it assisted living, but for
a very small number of residents, like twelve. Okay, So
(27:37):
all of that is clogging up that center lane. So
let's talk about some pricing. And again, if you're driving
your car, I need hands at ten and two. If
you're drinking your coffee, you might want to set your
coffee down. You want to spill it and get burned
or choke on your food. You set it all down.
Because the pricing here is it's up there. It's pretty expensive.
(28:01):
So if you downsize from your home and move into
an independent living community, you would expect to pay on
average per month around three thousand, five hundred dollars to
five thousand, five hundred dollars, depending on if it's one
(28:22):
or two people moving, and depending on the size of
the apartment. Okay, so thirty five to fifty five hundred
dollars pretty common. And I've had a lot of people
say well, gosh, you know, I live in my house,
and my house is paid off, so it's really cheap
to live here, and I'm like m. There are comparison
(28:44):
worksheets out there that will ask you, how much money
do you pay for your electricity and your gas, and
your water and your sewer and your trash. How much
money do you pay for homeowner's insurance? How much money
per month do you pay in personal property taxes? How
much money do you set aside and then spend on
(29:06):
home repair? You start, how much money do you spend
on groceries? You add all that up, and even if
you're living in a house that's paid off, it is
shocking how much money you spend every month. Shocking. So
when you look at thirty five to fifty five hundred,
(29:26):
you don't have most of those expenses. Your grocery bowl
goes way down because they provide one or two meals
for you per day, and you don't have to worry
about all of the traditional worries of home ownership. A
lot of times, that's not so bad after all, not
so bad after all. Assisted living taking up that center lane.
(29:53):
Are you ready for this? The two things that would
impact assisted living cost per month would be the size
of your apartment, So a studio is less than a
one is less than a two bedroom apartment. And then
how much care you need, so level of care. So typically,
and I don't have time to break down all the
different pricing structures, the most common one is a base
(30:15):
price plus a level of care. So they'll have a
level of care one, two, and three, that might even
go up to four or five. So maybe every level
of care adds five hundred dollars to the base, maxing
out at twenty five hundred dollars for example. And so
the reason that is is if you need just a
little bit of help, you're using less resources, you're paying
(30:36):
a little bit less. If you need a lot of help,
you're using a lot more resources, and you can be
paying a little bit more. So with all that in mind,
the average monthly cost for assisted living is six thousand
dollars to nine thousand dollars per month. Hands at ten
and two don't be I don't know. I filed a
couple of folks. Swerve on that one six thousand and
(30:56):
nine thousand dollars a month. Can you find it for
five thousand? Yep? I think so I think, so can
you spend ten thousand yep. Last week I talked about
a place I was charging over thirteen thousand dollars a month,
which is insane. By the way, that's ridiculous. Okay, six
to nine is going to cover most of them. And
then long term care, we've got a couple of different
options there. They charge on a daily basis in long
(31:20):
term care, not by the month, and a couple of
different options. So there's a shared room sometimes they call
it a semi private room, and then there is a
private room. So here's the deal. By the time you
get to that highest level of care, it's mostly about
the care you receive and it's not really much about
your personal space, and your personal space comes at a premium.
(31:41):
So the average price per month, i'll just add it
up on a thirty day month, is somewhere between eight
thousand dollars and nine five hundred dollars per month. And
that's for a shared room you have a roommate, Okay,
a private room, you're going to be spending anywhere from
about eleven thousand to fifteen thousand dollars per month. Super expensive. Now,
(32:02):
the residential care facility basically assist a living light most
of the time. Expect anything from thirty five hundred dollars
to about six thousand dollars a month, and then home
plus somewhere between eight thousand to ten thousand dollars a month.
So I hope I didn't just ruin your day. You're like, oh,
oh my gosh. I mean, I knew it was expensive,
(32:23):
but all right, but these numbers are accurate. And I'll
tell you what, across the nation, these are going to
be pretty accurate. Probably a little less in a smaller town,
maybe a little more in a large metropolitan area, but
that's going to be pretty close. And coming up next,
I'm going to get into those gray areas that I
mentioned before.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com. We'll have more coming up.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So you've been living independently at home, but now it's
not working out. It's time to begin searching for a
senior care community. But with hundreds of independent living, assisted living,
long term care, and memory care options, how are you
supposed to determine the best place for you? Hello. I'm
Steve Keeker, and this is exactly why I created my firm,
(33:24):
Senior Care Consulting. I help my own grandparents through this
difficult process, so I know how overwhelming this can be.
Our business model ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly
for you and we never receive reimbursement from any provider.
We've helped hundreds of family since two thousand and two,
(33:44):
and we can help you and your family as well.
Call today for a free consultation at nine one three
nine four five twenty eight hundred nine one three nine
four five twenty eight hundred a placement service with integrity
at Senior Care Consulting dot com. Welcome back. You're listening
(34:13):
to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network.
Have a question, visit Senior Care Live dot com. All right,
we're talking today about the different levels of care available
with senior care communities out in wherever you live. And
we've talked about independent living, assisted living, long term care,
(34:33):
and then to throw a little curve ball and clog
up that wide center lane, residential care and home plots.
How about that? We talked about all the different pricing
and a couple of people threw up I heard, and
a couple other people are like, oh my gosh. Anyway,
so a couple of these gray areas. Now this is
just gosh. I've heard this so many times, so once
(34:57):
in a while I'll bring it up. If you go
to an excuse me, if you go to an independent
living community, remember there's no licensure. They cannot lay a
hand on the resident because they are not authorized to
do so. They're not licensed to do so, they're not
(35:17):
regulated to do so. Okay, if you ever go to
an independent living and they say, oh, you can move here,
you can move your parents here, whoever whoever's looking, and
you'll you you won't need to worry about assist a living.
We got you covered because we can do all that.
You don't need to worry about all that. Okay, First
(35:41):
of all, run, don't walk, because that same is just
flatly not true. It's just is not true. What they're
probably talking about, which is frankly not a bad idea
for some people, is they have ant living community. Then
(36:02):
they have what I generally describe as an embedded on
site home care provider, and you'll so you'll have a
homecare company with staff in one of the apartments. That's
that's where their office is, and they can simply walk
down the hall and help you get dressed or give
you a medication reminder or stuff like that, things that
(36:25):
you would receive in an assistant living community. Okay, that's
provided at an extra cost, and it's built and provided
by a third party company, a home care provider that
has nothing to do with the independent living community otherwise
(36:45):
other than they have a contract and they're on site
and they've been they're authorized to do this. Okay. So
I've had some clients where I call this kind of
a niche type of a need and placement where this
has been a good fit. He clearly could not live
on his own, and he very clearly was not ready
for assisted living. So I introduced the family to the
(37:07):
concept of moving into a nice independent living community and
then take advantage of their home care offering to help
him out a little bit here and there. Nothing wrong
with it. But if you hear well, you're not going
to need assistant living, it's just not true. It's just
here's the problem with that. Okay. Once if you add
(37:30):
all this up, like they might charge fifteen dollars a unit,
and a unit is up to fifteen minutes, and it
may be a little bit less than that, but somewhere
between like forty five to sixty bucks an hours. Essentially
what you're paying as you need more and more and
more care and help by the time you pay your
independent living price plus the additional cost of that home care.
(37:55):
Pretty soon it doesn't take too much of that support
to be paying for, you know, a few hours of
home care support and having that cost exceed twenty four
hour care at an assistant living community. Okay, so you
just need to be aware of that. And then I've
(38:17):
heard this one, maybe one or two million times. Well, Steve,
we went to this assistan living community and they said
that they're an age and place community, my dad will
never have to leave. Three months later, we got a
discharge letter saying we can no longer meet your dad's needs.
(38:39):
He needs to move. Did they lie to us? And
I'm like, well, I wasn't theirs. I don't know what
was said, but this classically falls into the bucket of
way over promised and way under delivered. So is it
the goal of every single assisted living community to have
(39:02):
your loved one age in place for the rest of
their lives and stay there in a nice apartment in
assist of living community. Absolutely that's the goal. But do
they always make that goal. No, they don't. Every single
assist of living community has a threshold. It could be
(39:24):
a two person transfer. It could be having or depending
on them to provide that insulin injection in the middle
of the night when your blood sugar crashes. It's right
because maybe they're just not staff for that. Maybe they're
staff for that for two shifts a day, but not
three overnight. Okay, maybe it's weakened to the point of
(39:45):
requiring a two person transfer. They're only really staffed to
provide a one person transfer. So there's some all of
a sudden, we have some kidney issues and some bladdery issues,
and now we have an in dwelling foley catheter not
able to do that. We have some wound care needs
and that not being met by the home health agency
Medicare certified home health agency, and they're not able to
(40:05):
manage that. So stuff happens, right, So you may it's
just that's the gray area. Assuming that your loved one
can stay and assisted living throughout their entire life, it
may happen and If it does, that's fantastic, but it
may not. That's the whole point of this. Another big
(40:26):
driver is you outlive your assets and you're an assisted
of living community and they're not Medicaid certified, and so
you're going to have to move to long term care
just for financial reasons. I see that. I get that
call all the time through senior care consulting. So memory
care is a special type of care for a resident
(40:47):
with cognitive impairment. Memory care is not a level of care.
So you could be an assisted living resident needing help
with your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and continent support, medication management,
et cetera, et cetera, and have dementia and being becoming
a wandering risk where you're kind of an elopement risk
(41:09):
or a flight risk, or you're easily overstimulated and you
need that smaller memory care unit or memory care neighborhood
to help you just kind of be calm and cool, okay,
Or maybe you have some behaviors or what have you. Well,
you would need an assisted living level of care offering
a memory care unit or memory care neighborhood. Now, if
(41:31):
you need some of those medical needs, you may need
long term care as your level of care. And you
have Alzheimer's okay, and now you're having some behaviors and
you need some you need that special cognitive care as well.
You would move into long term care that has a
memory care unit or memory care neighborhood. Does that make sense?
(41:54):
So if someone says, well, oh we have memory care, well,
what does that mean that's a special type of care
for resident with cognitive impairment. What level of care is
at is at the assistant living level? Is that at
the residential care level of cares? At the home plus
level of care? Resit the long term care level of care?
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
If this all sounds complicated and you're like, Okay, my
head is spinning. We need some help, this is what
I do with my company, Senior Care Consulting twenty four
to seven for twenty three years. I'm getting pretty good
at this by now, nine four five, twenty eight hundred.
I would invite you to call for a free consultation.
Let's see if we can help you and your family out.
(42:32):
Nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred. All right,
I'm Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace in peace.
May God bless you and your family on this day
and always join me next week right here on Senior
Care Life.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing sea your care, and they need to
know about you. A unique and successful radio program called
Senior Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your
target audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior
(43:12):
Care Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, estate planning and older law practices,
financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home health agencies,
(43:33):
and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers. Senior
Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
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eight hundred or visit seniorcare Live dot com seniorcare live
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the un O. Here's an example. I'll recommend your senior
care community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from
my referral. The free referral services have a vested interest
in you choosing one of their business partners. That's how
(44:14):
they make their money. Does this paid recommendation sound objective
or credible? Of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior
Care Consulting. I'm so proud to say we have never
received a single penny from any provider ever. We offer
a placement service with integrity for help finding the right
senior care community, without conflict of interest and without the
(44:37):
quid pro quo called nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred Replacement Service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting dot
com
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education, and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's senior care consultant,
Steve Keecker, Hello and welcome to Senior Care Live.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Steve Keeker, your senior care consultant, and I really
appreciate you tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Say, hang on, we have a late breaking story here.
Oh oh, it's Tom broken jaw. Tom, You're my favorite newsman.
Thank you for legal reasons. Assist Tom broken Jaw. There
you I have a late breaking story that I think
is going to be important to all of your listeners.
Oh across the world.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh wow, Now okay, So it must be something to
do with Israel or the Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Or hang on a tariff. Hang. I gotta have music.
I gotta have late breaking music, folks. Yeah, ok, yeah,
that's more like it. I'm Tom Rokenshaw with you're a
late breaking story.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I can't wait with baited breath?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Is that what that smell?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Okay, Steve, I'm happy to tell you that Travis Kelcey
and Taylor Swift are engaged.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
No they are not.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, yes they are. And you're just breaking this Steve.
This is a big story. Okay, there's no expiration date
on it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh okay, because I think I think I heard something
about that maybe last twoday.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Like it's a big story. And finally the Chiefs, fans
and Swifties are united. I don't think we're gonna call
them chiefties. Yeah, I'm gonna see that, Steve. I know
it was four days ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is
the biggest story since Epstein, since Cracker Barrel, since New
Coke for crying out with don't mess with the coke.
(01:50):
This is a future lifestyle for a lot of people.
I'm Tom Rokanjaw. That is, you're breaking those reports. Now
back to Senior Carol Live with Steve Kicker.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, thank you, thank you, mister broken Jaw. I appreciate
my my favorite, my favorite newsman of all time. So
and what a surprise that he dropped by the station again.
He wished me a happy anniversary, I don't know, a
couple of weeks ago. So that was very nice. So anyway,
all right, so look hope hopefully you had you got
(02:23):
a kick out of that. Look, we're broadcasting our our
our our home station here is in Kansas City. We
happen to be uh, we happen to have a pretty
good football team around here. Travis Kelcey and Taylor Swift.
It's been just quite the uproar, and now it is official,
she said, yes, and everybody's just kind of giddy about it.
(02:43):
So anyways, it's kind of cool. So all right, well
let's move on to information, education and resources for seniors
and their caregivers. How about that? So uh, and we'll
get off the Travis Taylor topic. So I want to
I talked today about the levels of care that could
(03:04):
be found in a number of senior care communities. I'm
gonna break it down and I'm going to explain exactly
what they offer, what they don't offer. I am going
to review the average monthly cost. You might want to
grip tight to your wheel if you're driving listening to
that part, or you know, don't spit your coffee out
(03:25):
or choke on your whatever you're eating at this time.
The stuff is expensive. Okay, So we're gonna go through
all of that, and I might even if I have
time later on, I might even go through a couple
of gray areas that really trip people up quite a bit.
So before we jump into all of the different levels
of care available in the market, a super quick recap
and I just covered this, I think last week or
(03:46):
the week before. What to determine before ever thinking about
beginning of your search. You've got to know the level
of care that will be required, the type of care,
the payment method, how are you going to pay for this, location, parameters,
and any personal preferences needs. But once you have that,
you're going to go out into the market and you're
going to check out all of these different options and
figure out the right one for you. So the entry
(04:08):
point is independent living. And let me just say that
independent living is a great option for a lot of people,
but there is no care provided by the independent living staff.
There is no licensure for independent living period Now, they
(04:29):
may have an on site home care provider that can
come down to your apartment and help you with some
different daily tasks, et cetera. But an independent living community
does not hold a licensure. It's an apartment they provide
at least typically you'll have the main meal each day,
(04:52):
provided maybe a couple of meals per day. Your independent
living apartment has a fully equipped kitchen. You can cook
anything you want, anytime you want. They have transportation if
you don't want to drive out in the bad weather.
Lots of socialization opportunities, but you are fully on your
(05:13):
own in independent living. So that would be attractive for
someone who lives in a house. Maybe they're just using
a small percentage of the house and the normal responsibility
I wanted. I didn't want to call it a burden.
At some point, it does become a burden, right, the
burden of home ownership and home ownership responsibility becomes burdensome,
(05:38):
you know, so dealing with you know, water heaters and
roofs and mowing the lawn and scooping the snow and
just just all the stuff, and the HVAC goes out,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, at some point,
that's just like, you know, I need to get out
from underneath this house. This thing's telling me. And what
(06:01):
you do is you move. Typically it's a downsize at
least a little bit or maybe a lot. You move
to an independent living community is really for a lifestyle change.
You let your hair down and they're going to do
some of these things for you. You never have to worry
about anything that's home ownership related ever. Again, you don't
(06:21):
even pay utilities, you don't pay taxes, you don't pay
homeowners insurance, and man, that keeps going up every year.
It's killing me, right, And you don't have to You
don't even have to change the light bulb. Okay, they've
got all of these things covered for you. They do
some of the cooking, and so it's just a lifestyle change, okay,
And that's very, very attractive for a lot of people.
(06:44):
So that's really the starting point again understanding there is
no care provided at the independent living level, all right,
So then the next primary option. I wish you could
see my I'm going to be doing a lot of
presentations this fall. I'm getting back into the swing of
(07:07):
presenting to churches and civic groups and chambers of commerce
and large companies and client bases all over the country
for financial advisors and all of those sort of things. Right,
So if you could see my graphic, it makes more sense.
But just try to visualize this. So I have independent
(07:30):
living off to the left and then in the center
taking up a little over half of the real estate
on my slide is assisted living. I'll explain that in
a second. So assisted living is a social model. What
do I mean by that? Mainly, what I mean is
(07:53):
it's not a medical model. It's not a medical offering,
but there's a tremendous amount of support in helping you
with your If you hear this term ADL's ADL, I
try not to speak in acronymology because that's irritating. You'll
hear someone rattling off all these ADLs like everybody's supposed
(08:13):
to understand what the heck they're talking about. Now, now look
at that. I'm like these people here, they have no
clue what you're talking about. Stop that right. So in
ADL is an activity of daily living, so they can
help you minimally or fully your bathing, dressing, grooming, and toileting.
(08:33):
Those are the kind of the big areas. They distribute
your medications. They completely manage that for you. Order it,
change up medications, get the new ones in, get rid
of the old ones, and then they literally hand them
to you at the right time, so you're getting your
meds properly and on time. They can help out with
incontinence support to a point to a point. If it
(08:57):
gets too far out of hand, you're not able to
handle that, they can keep up with it. That's going
to be one of the threshold barriers there, or lines
in the sand, if you will, for assisted living, but
they can help you out with that. They make all
of your meals, snacks, and hydration. At this point, they
have a full slate of activities for meaningful social engagement.
(09:21):
Doctors make house calls, which is great. They'll come right
to your apartment in the assisted living community. If you
have your own doctor, need to see a specialist, there's
transportation to get out to see them. So there is
a tremendous amount of support at the assisted living level
(09:42):
of care. I'll tell you what those activities of daily
living bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, using the restroom,
and those are those. Look, we do these things. We're
just on autopilot. We just automatically do these for decades,
decades in decades, until at one point maybe your arthritis
(10:04):
prohibits you from bending over far enough to put your
socks on, and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't
put myself. I'm going to need some help with that.
Something as simple as that. Okay, it's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
They can help you put your socks on, in your
shoes on, and maybe you have everything else covered. Okay,
So that's just one really super small example. But that's
the independent living and the assisted living level of care.
Coming up next, I'll review the long term care level
of care. But first, the Senior Care Live question of
the week, all assisted living communities care for residents with dementia?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Is that state a true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:05):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find a
place for your loved one. If this sounds overwhelming, that's
because it is. I invite you to reach out to
Senior Care Consulting. We've been serving family since two thousand
(11:27):
and two. With our premium service, we do most of
the work for you. You'll spend just a few hours
of your time finding the best place available, and you
can trust us to be objective because we don't receive
reimbursement from any provider. We work for you. To learn more,
call Senior Care Consulting at nine three nine four five
(11:49):
twenty eight hundred three nine four five twenty eight hundred,
a placement service with integrity at Seniorcareconsulting dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. All right, back to the Senior Care Live
question of the week. All assisted living communities care for
residents with dementia? Does that statement true or false? And
(12:28):
the answer is true. The answer is true. But let
me just unpack that a little bit more. There are
a lot of residents with early early stage Alzheimer's mild dementia,
kind of earlier in the game. We're pleasantly confused, might
(12:50):
be a little forgetful, we may repeat ourselves, and some
of these things okay, just no big deal. And the
assisted living level of care and assistant living community can
care for those folks, and they do all day long,
every day. I'm going to talk a little bit more
about memory care in a little bit. But as these
(13:12):
as these issues begin to I guess, accelerate. As you
start to accelerate into some of these issues where you
have a cognitive decline, some of the issues may cause
the need for a special memory care unit or memory
(13:33):
care neighborhood memory care part of the building, and not
all of them have that, and that just makes everything
really confusing. So anyway, let's get back to the levels
of care available out in the marketplace. We talked about
independent living. It's there's no care provided there, but it's
a great lifestyle change for a lot of folks. Then
(13:58):
I talked about assist it living level of care, a
social model that can help you minimally or fully with
your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, incontinent support, medications are managed
and distributed, all all of the stuff, right, it's not
a medical situation. And before I move to move on
(14:22):
to long term care, the assisted living level, every single
assisted living community has a threshold, every single one of them.
And if your care exceeds that threshold, you will be
asked to move. And I'm going to touch on that
here in just a little bit. All right, So let's
(14:44):
move on to the highest level of care. And you
know a lot of folks back in the day, we
call this a nursing home. How we're going to go
to the nursing home, or yeah, let's check out a
nursing home, et cetera, et cetera. The industry, the business,
they don't well, they don't like that word because it
comes with a lot of stereotype in their negative baggage. Okay,
(15:09):
So what they would rather refer and this is what
I refer to this level of care. I just call
it long term care. Some folks call it skilled nursing.
Some folks call it the health center, et cetera, et cetera. Okay,
And if you want to call it a nursing home,
I'm not mad at you. That's okay. You call it
whatever you want. I generally refer to it as long
(15:32):
term care. In the long term care level of care,
they provide all of the support of the assisted living level,
plus full medical care. They can help out with diabetic management,
insulin injections, pain management, and pain related injections, pain patches,
(15:55):
pain pumps. They can provide wound care. If someone has
any skins breakdown, we have a wound care need. They've
got urns and LPNs on staff. They can help out
with that. Hopefully get that skin breakdown, that wound care
all buttoned up and healed up for you. They can
manage a urinary catheter, take care of that. You got
(16:18):
to change them, you got to flush them. You've got
the leg bag or you have the urinary catheter bag
that might be attached to a wheelchair perhaps or maybe bedside.
They can help out and manage tube feeding if someone
has two feeding, and maybe even IV therapy. So they're
(16:38):
just and God bless them. But some residents are so
weak that they just can't help with their own movement,
and so maybe they've declined to the situation where they're
kind of dead weight, and you could be one hundred
pounds dead weight and kind of feels like three hundred
pounds when you're trying to pick them up, and you
(16:59):
need to be careful because you don't want to hurt
this person. You need to pick them up properly. So
it's going to take two staff or maybe even a
mechanical patient lift to help that person move safely and
comfortably from point A to point B. Okay, all those
things are provided in long term care. Now, you could
(17:22):
have a couple of those services provided at a few
assisted living communities. There are a few assisted living communities
I know of that can offer diabetic management with insulin injection.
There are a few assisted living communities that can offer
(17:42):
their staff to offer a two person transfer. Vast majority
of them do not do that. Okay, So long term
care is the medical model, and that is the highest
level of care for sure. All right, so let's go
ahead and complicate this a little more. In the assisted
(18:05):
living level of care. Remember I mentioned it takes up
a lot of real estate. It takes up probably about
two thirds a half to two thirds of my graphic Darren,
we need to start. We need to get some television
cameras into this stuff. This needs to be on YouTube
or something. I don't know. Anyway, we'll work on that next.
(18:27):
So you have assistant living on the left side, and
on the far right hand side you've got long term care.
So you've got that wide swath in the middle of
the page. Why is that, well at the assisted living
level of care. They're operated by a licensure, and the
(18:49):
licensure controls what you can do and must do and
must provide, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a lot
of leeway there. Oh, what do you mean, Steve. Okay, well,
I'll tell you. In the in the world of assistant living,
you could be leaning way over to the left. This
(19:10):
is my graphic. I wish I could show you way
over to the left where you're almost in the area
of independent living, and they just don't provide a lot
of a lot of support. They'll they'll provide some of
it a little bit, okay, but there it's all about marketing.
We have a young, vibrant, super active community come to
(19:34):
our assistant living community and have lots of fun, and
that's great. That that's fine. That's that's kind of what
they're going for. Some assist of living communities lean way
over to the right where they're approaching that long term care,
that nursing home level of care, and they bend over
backwards to keep you from having to move to long
(19:55):
term care. Okay, And there's more staffing and and a
lot more support. Oh and by the way, everything in
between I was just telling a client earlier this week
we started working together and I said, the challenge with
assisted living is you could go out and talk to
six different places, hear a different story at each place,
(20:17):
and they could all be right because there's just such
a wide path in that center lane for assisted living.
So that's that's why I think assisted living is the
second most difficult level of care if you don't know
what you're doing to try to figure out and wrap
your head around to try to find the right one.
(20:37):
And coming up next, a couple of more curveballs in
that center lane. Don't go away.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare live dot com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Hello, this is Steve Keeker, President of Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so excited to announce that we are expanding nationwide
by awarding Senior Care Consulting franchises. We help our clients
find the right senior care community, including assistant living, memory care,
long term care, and continuing care retirement communities. We are
(21:22):
not another run of the mill, free referral service. We're
very different. We offer replacement service with integrity. Owning a
senior care consulting franchise offers many benefits. Our market is
not affected by the economy. Operate from your home office
and enjoy work life balance. Pour your passion into a
business you can be proud of. For more information about
(21:45):
owning a senior care consulting franchise, call eight three three
seven two two three seven two six eight three three
seven two two three seven two six or visit Seniorcareconsulting
dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
(22:11):
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts of the program,
visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, so we're talking about the all of the
different levels of care that you could receive out in
the market. Of course, relative to senior care communities. We
(22:34):
talked a little bit about independent living. We talked about
assist of living and that wide lane in the center
where you have some assist of living communities that will
provide less care than others, or some that will provide
way more care than others, and everything in between. That
just makes that really really complicated because it's not a
(22:55):
standardized model. I guess that's the message. And then we
talked about the highest level of care, long term care,
also known by still a lot of folks as a
nursing home. That's that medical model. That is a standardized model,
that long term care. They all offer the same thing. Okay.
Now some do a much better job delivering than others. Okay,
(23:18):
but that's a very standardized model. Assists of living is not.
It's just not all right. So another curve ball in
the center lane. We have another licensure which I referred
to as a level of care. It's called a residential
care facility. Now around here our flagship station, Odyssey station
(23:44):
KNBZ AM and FM broadcasting out of Kansas City, we
have a residential care on the Kansas side and the
Missouri side, and Missouri start has to get a little
more fancy. They got r CF one and our CF
two on the Kansas site is just residential care facility RCF.
Now other parts of the country, I know, we have
(24:06):
different terminology, but a residential care facility is essentially and
not always you have all these exceptions. Is assisted living light,
if you will.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
They have a little bit of a higher level or
more independent group of residents. They don't need quite as
much help, but they need some help for sure. They
need their meds managed and their laundry done, and maybe
a little help with their activities of daily living. And
they need their all the meals cooked and provided little
(24:44):
oversight and supervision and safety and security. So residential care
facility generally speaking, is on the So if you looked
at my graphic, it's on that left hand side, a
lighter level of assistant living, if you will, and that's
not always okay, but generally speaking, that's it. Then on
(25:06):
the higher end, on the assisted living path, if you will,
kind of to the right hand side of my graphic,
we have something in these parts called home plus. What
this is and it is very popular on the coast.
I could see this one coming from a mile away.
(25:27):
That's one of the that's one of the big advantages
of living in the center of the entire nation. You
can see what's popular and what's trending on the coasts,
and it takes about five to ten years to work
its way to the center of the country. And I
could see this one coming from you know, years ahead,
(25:48):
miles away. So home plus is care provided to residents
living in a house. So generally, generally speaking, it's going
to be a ranch style house and you might have
four to six residents. Typically that'll top out at about
twelve residents in a ranch style house. Everyone has a bedroom.
(26:10):
You may have a master suite type of a situation
and en suite where you have the bath as part
of the you know, like a master bedroom has a
master bath right off the side of it. Some of
them may have their own bedroom and maybe two or
three residents might share a full bath on the hallway.
That kind of thing you talk about a homelike environment.
(26:33):
They've got that down. Usually. The staffing ratios are really
really great in Home Plus and so a lot of
times you'll have you know, you'll have a couple of
different staff for six or eight residents. That's pretty good.
And you don't have to walk down a one hundred
foot long hallway to check on someone might walk down
a thirty foot long hallway to check on someone. So
(26:55):
it's just it's just it's a really good fit for
a lot of folks. And I would say it's the
assisted living level on the higher end of it provided
to a small number of individuals living in a house.
It's fully licensed okay by the state. It's monitored, they
have surveys just like everyone else does. It's just a
(27:17):
different environment. It's a great fit for a lot of folks,
and other states don't have that carved out like home plus,
so they may just call it assisted living, but for
a very small number of residents, like twelve. Okay, So
(27:37):
all of that is clogging up that center lane. So
let's talk about some pricing. And again, if you're driving
your car, I need hands at ten and two. If
you're drinking your coffee, you might want to set your
coffee down. You want to spill it and get burned
or choke on your food. You set it all down.
Because the pricing here is it's up there. It's pretty expensive.
(28:01):
So if you downsize from your home and move into
an independent living community, you would expect to pay on
average per month around three thousand, five hundred dollars to
five thousand, five hundred dollars, depending on if it's one
(28:22):
or two people moving, and depending on the size of
the apartment. Okay, so thirty five to fifty five hundred
dollars pretty common. And I've had a lot of people
say well, gosh, you know, I live in my house,
and my house is paid off, so it's really cheap
to live here, and I'm like m. There are comparison
(28:44):
worksheets out there that will ask you, how much money
do you pay for your electricity and your gas, and
your water and your sewer and your trash. How much
money do you pay for homeowner's insurance? How much money
per month do you pay in personal property taxes? How
much money do you set aside and then spend on
(29:06):
home repair? You start, how much money do you spend
on groceries? You add all that up, and even if
you're living in a house that's paid off, it is
shocking how much money you spend every month. Shocking. So
when you look at thirty five to fifty five hundred,
(29:26):
you don't have most of those expenses. Your grocery bowl
goes way down because they provide one or two meals
for you per day, and you don't have to worry
about all of the traditional worries of home ownership. A
lot of times, that's not so bad after all, not
so bad after all. Assisted living taking up that center lane.
(29:53):
Are you ready for this? The two things that would
impact assisted living cost per month would be the size
of your apartment, So a studio is less than a
one is less than a two bedroom apartment. And then
how much care you need, so level of care. So typically,
and I don't have time to break down all the
different pricing structures, the most common one is a base
(30:15):
price plus a level of care. So they'll have a
level of care one, two, and three, that might even
go up to four or five. So maybe every level
of care adds five hundred dollars to the base, maxing
out at twenty five hundred dollars for example. And so
the reason that is is if you need just a
little bit of help, you're using less resources, you're paying
(30:36):
a little bit less. If you need a lot of help,
you're using a lot more resources, and you can be
paying a little bit more. So with all that in mind,
the average monthly cost for assisted living is six thousand
dollars to nine thousand dollars per month. Hands at ten
and two don't be I don't know. I filed a
couple of folks. Swerve on that one six thousand and
(30:56):
nine thousand dollars a month. Can you find it for
five thousand? Yep? I think so I think, so can
you spend ten thousand yep. Last week I talked about
a place I was charging over thirteen thousand dollars a month,
which is insane. By the way, that's ridiculous. Okay, six
to nine is going to cover most of them. And
then long term care, we've got a couple of different
options there. They charge on a daily basis in long
(31:20):
term care, not by the month, and a couple of
different options. So there's a shared room sometimes they call
it a semi private room, and then there is a
private room. So here's the deal. By the time you
get to that highest level of care, it's mostly about
the care you receive and it's not really much about
your personal space, and your personal space comes at a premium.
(31:41):
So the average price per month, i'll just add it
up on a thirty day month, is somewhere between eight
thousand dollars and nine five hundred dollars per month. And
that's for a shared room you have a roommate, Okay,
a private room, you're going to be spending anywhere from
about eleven thousand to fifteen thousand dollars per month. Super expensive. Now,
(32:02):
the residential care facility basically assist a living light most
of the time. Expect anything from thirty five hundred dollars
to about six thousand dollars a month, and then home
plus somewhere between eight thousand to ten thousand dollars a month.
So I hope I didn't just ruin your day. You're like, oh,
oh my gosh. I mean, I knew it was expensive,
(32:23):
but all right, but these numbers are accurate. And I'll
tell you what, across the nation, these are going to
be pretty accurate. Probably a little less in a smaller town,
maybe a little more in a large metropolitan area, but
that's going to be pretty close. And coming up next,
I'm going to get into those gray areas that I
mentioned before.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com. We'll have more coming up.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So you've been living independently at home, but now it's
not working out. It's time to begin searching for a
senior care community. But with hundreds of independent living, assisted living,
long term care, and memory care options, how are you
supposed to determine the best place for you? Hello. I'm
Steve Keeker, and this is exactly why I created my firm,
(33:24):
Senior Care Consulting. I help my own grandparents through this
difficult process, so I know how overwhelming this can be.
Our business model ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly
for you and we never receive reimbursement from any provider.
We've helped hundreds of family since two thousand and two,
(33:44):
and we can help you and your family as well.
Call today for a free consultation at nine one three
nine four five twenty eight hundred nine one three nine
four five twenty eight hundred a placement service with integrity
at Senior Care Consulting dot com. Welcome back. You're listening
(34:13):
to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network.
Have a question, visit Senior Care Live dot com. All right,
we're talking today about the different levels of care available
with senior care communities out in wherever you live. And
we've talked about independent living, assisted living, long term care,
(34:33):
and then to throw a little curve ball and clog
up that wide center lane, residential care and home plots.
How about that? We talked about all the different pricing
and a couple of people threw up I heard, and
a couple other people are like, oh my gosh. Anyway,
so a couple of these gray areas. Now this is
just gosh. I've heard this so many times, so once
(34:57):
in a while I'll bring it up. If you go
to an excuse me, if you go to an independent
living community, remember there's no licensure. They cannot lay a
hand on the resident because they are not authorized to
do so. They're not licensed to do so, they're not
(35:17):
regulated to do so. Okay, if you ever go to
an independent living and they say, oh, you can move here,
you can move your parents here, whoever whoever's looking, and
you'll you you won't need to worry about assist a living.
We got you covered because we can do all that.
You don't need to worry about all that. Okay, First
(35:41):
of all, run, don't walk, because that same is just
flatly not true. It's just is not true. What they're
probably talking about, which is frankly not a bad idea
for some people, is they have ant living community. Then
(36:02):
they have what I generally describe as an embedded on
site home care provider, and you'll so you'll have a
homecare company with staff in one of the apartments. That's
that's where their office is, and they can simply walk
down the hall and help you get dressed or give
you a medication reminder or stuff like that, things that
(36:25):
you would receive in an assistant living community. Okay, that's
provided at an extra cost, and it's built and provided
by a third party company, a home care provider that
has nothing to do with the independent living community otherwise
(36:45):
other than they have a contract and they're on site
and they've been they're authorized to do this. Okay. So
I've had some clients where I call this kind of
a niche type of a need and placement where this
has been a good fit. He clearly could not live
on his own, and he very clearly was not ready
for assisted living. So I introduced the family to the
(37:07):
concept of moving into a nice independent living community and
then take advantage of their home care offering to help
him out a little bit here and there. Nothing wrong
with it. But if you hear well, you're not going
to need assistant living, it's just not true. It's just
here's the problem with that. Okay. Once if you add
(37:30):
all this up, like they might charge fifteen dollars a unit,
and a unit is up to fifteen minutes, and it
may be a little bit less than that, but somewhere
between like forty five to sixty bucks an hours. Essentially
what you're paying as you need more and more and
more care and help by the time you pay your
independent living price plus the additional cost of that home care.
(37:55):
Pretty soon it doesn't take too much of that support
to be paying for, you know, a few hours of
home care support and having that cost exceed twenty four
hour care at an assistant living community. Okay, so you
just need to be aware of that. And then I've
(38:17):
heard this one, maybe one or two million times. Well, Steve,
we went to this assistan living community and they said
that they're an age and place community, my dad will
never have to leave. Three months later, we got a
discharge letter saying we can no longer meet your dad's needs.
(38:39):
He needs to move. Did they lie to us? And
I'm like, well, I wasn't theirs. I don't know what
was said, but this classically falls into the bucket of
way over promised and way under delivered. So is it
the goal of every single assisted living community to have
(39:02):
your loved one age in place for the rest of
their lives and stay there in a nice apartment in
assist of living community. Absolutely that's the goal. But do
they always make that goal. No, they don't. Every single
assist of living community has a threshold. It could be
(39:24):
a two person transfer. It could be having or depending
on them to provide that insulin injection in the middle
of the night when your blood sugar crashes. It's right
because maybe they're just not staff for that. Maybe they're
staff for that for two shifts a day, but not
three overnight. Okay, maybe it's weakened to the point of
(39:45):
requiring a two person transfer. They're only really staffed to
provide a one person transfer. So there's some all of
a sudden, we have some kidney issues and some bladdery issues,
and now we have an in dwelling foley catheter not
able to do that. We have some wound care needs
and that not being met by the home health agency
Medicare certified home health agency, and they're not able to
(40:05):
manage that. So stuff happens, right, So you may it's
just that's the gray area. Assuming that your loved one
can stay and assisted living throughout their entire life, it
may happen and If it does, that's fantastic, but it
may not. That's the whole point of this. Another big
(40:26):
driver is you outlive your assets and you're an assisted
of living community and they're not Medicaid certified, and so
you're going to have to move to long term care
just for financial reasons. I see that. I get that
call all the time through senior care consulting. So memory
care is a special type of care for a resident
(40:47):
with cognitive impairment. Memory care is not a level of care.
So you could be an assisted living resident needing help
with your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and continent support, medication management,
et cetera, et cetera, and have dementia and being becoming
a wandering risk where you're kind of an elopement risk
(41:09):
or a flight risk, or you're easily overstimulated and you
need that smaller memory care unit or memory care neighborhood
to help you just kind of be calm and cool, okay,
Or maybe you have some behaviors or what have you. Well,
you would need an assisted living level of care offering
a memory care unit or memory care neighborhood. Now, if
(41:31):
you need some of those medical needs, you may need
long term care as your level of care. And you
have Alzheimer's okay, and now you're having some behaviors and
you need some you need that special cognitive care as well.
You would move into long term care that has a
memory care unit or memory care neighborhood. Does that make sense?
(41:54):
So if someone says, well, oh we have memory care, well,
what does that mean that's a special type of care
for resident with cognitive impairment. What level of care is
at is at the assistant living level? Is that at
the residential care level of cares? At the home plus
level of care? Resit the long term care level of care?
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
If this all sounds complicated and you're like, Okay, my
head is spinning. We need some help, this is what
I do with my company, Senior Care Consulting twenty four
to seven for twenty three years. I'm getting pretty good
at this by now, nine four five, twenty eight hundred.
I would invite you to call for a free consultation.
Let's see if we can help you and your family out.
(42:32):
Nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred. All right,
I'm Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace in peace.
May God bless you and your family on this day
and always join me next week right here on Senior
Care Life.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing sea your care, and they need to
know about you. A unique and successful radio program called
Senior Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your
target audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior
(43:12):
Care Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, estate planning and older law practices,
financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home health agencies,
(43:33):
and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers. Senior
Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
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eight hundred or visit seniorcare Live dot com seniorcare live
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Speaker 2 (43:52):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the un O. Here's an example. I'll recommend your senior
care community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from
my referral. The free referral services have a vested interest
in you choosing one of their business partners. That's how
(44:14):
they make their money. Does this paid recommendation sound objective
or credible? Of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior
Care Consulting. I'm so proud to say we have never
received a single penny from any provider ever. We offer
a placement service with integrity for help finding the right
senior care community, without conflict of interest and without the
(44:37):
quid pro quo called nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
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