Stephanie Organ

Benefits of Investing in Assisted Living Facilities What are Assisted Living Facilities? Not to be confused with Nursing Homes or Congregate Units, Assisted Living is a housing solution nestled right in between the two, offered to elderly people who wish to remain independent but require some form of support at home. Units often come in the form of an apartment or studio room and are rented rather than owned. While complete independence may no longer be an option but nursing home services remain for those who need constant medical assistance, Assisted Living boasts the most affordable and flexible option on the market along with growing opportunities for investors and developers. With an ageing population in the US, the Assisted Living Facilities market has a bright future ahead. Not only is it a great time to invest in this kind of real estate, it’s also a worthwhile investment, generating an income of around double the average US salary. What an interesting way to secure your own retirement, by investing in the retirement of those before you, and with just a small initial investment, your own retirement could be just around the corner. So where do you start with this kind of investment? We will cover how to start and manage an Assisted Living Facility in a moment. First, let’s further discuss the promising future of Assisted Living Facilities and why they are such a secure investment. As mentioned, the current demographic of America and much of Europe is that of an ageing population. To put this into perspective, there are currently 33 million people in the US of 65 years or older. This number is due to double in the next 25 years, which signifies a steady demand and growing market for retirement housing. Every day, around 4000 pensioners will be turning 85, with 70% of these expected to require an average of 3.5 years of assistance with daily living. A projection of the Assisted Living industry over 15 years from 2005 to 2020 shows a 68 billion USD increase. As an investor, shouldn’t you open up your portfolio and cash in on this? While the demand might be there, elderly people are still reluctant to move into large units or nursing homes, but this is another win for Assisted Living Facilities. With a small or medium sized facility, there are less government regulations which gives you the freedom to create a more homely environment. Residents and their families are much more likely to want to chose this option. Even if your home is located next to a huge retirement unit, your home will be an eternally more desirable option and will remain in demand. Some people will go to great lengths to remain in their comfort zones, so the ability to move somewhere that still feels like home and that allows them to hold on to their independence comes as a god send. Beyond home comforts, Assisted Living Facilities offer the most economically friendly and practical solution for families with ageing relatives. With the structure of today’s society, it is no longer viable for parents to move into their children’s homes, as both their child and their spouse are likely to work during the day leaving no one around to offer care. Paying for a carer hourly can rack up quite the bill, whereas Assisted Living Facilities offer an affordable middle ground, while still bringing in a tidy profit for you, the investor. Residents maintain independence but have help on hand when needed. It’s all very desirable, which is the key factor. Getting started Before starting an Assisted Living Facility, it is really important to do some soul searching. This is not to be taken lightly and it’s very easy to get distracted by the profits and business side of things, but failing to recognise the realities of running this kind of facility will surely end in failure. Of course it is also possible to take a less active roll in the business, but you will need an excellent team in place that yo can trust. If however your intention is to be very involved, then expect to be on call 24/7. As the owner living on site you will consistently be the key decision maker in any crisis, you will be constantly regulating everything, and taking a break will be very difficult. You will essentially have the lives and wellbeing of many people in your hands and you need to be prepared to take responsibility for that, emotionally and legally. Additionally consider whether you think you can handle difficult residence, aggressive family members, and heartbreaking situations such as the death of a resident. Furthermore people these days are living longer and waiting later to enter this kind of facility. This means dealing with memory loss and confused patients more and more. These things can take their toll and become complicated, so you have to be prepared. Equally, working in this field can be extremely rewarding! You can have long term patients and build great relationships with them and find that they really add to the community based around your facility. Take Esme for example, who began her journey 25 years ago when she and her husband, Peter, moved to an independent living community upon retirement. She has spent the last 5 years in an assisted living facility unit after her husband passed away. Esme has always felt at home at her facility and loves being part of the community, she also takes advantage of the daily exercise classes which she really enjoys. Her son, Cliff, sometimes visits and plays guitar to the other residents while she sings along. Esme was a seamstress for many years, a hobby which she was able to continue after moving to her unit and she is still making herself clothes to this day! Often your residents will have a lot to add to your community, even if it’s just support for each other, and you will quickly feel like they are part of your family. So you think you’ve got what it takes? The first step will be to find the perfect property in the ideal location, this takes a lot of research, but the right property will be worth the effort. You must consider legal restraints and follow all the regulations correctly. You need to determine exactly what services your facility will provide and have a clear overall business plan. This will be especially important later when providing your clients with the proper information of what your facility can provide. You don’t want any conflicting information if you later change your plans and goals. Finally, you need hire an incredible team who are passionate and reliable. Your team will be the main interaction point for your clients and residents so they need to make the best impression and radiate your facility’s principals in everything they do. We will also cover ways in which you can finance such an investment. Let’s take a closer look at finding the perfect property. There are lots of points to consider regarding the property itself such as accessibility - can you find a property on a single level? You will probably need to carry out renovations, so is there a lot of space to work with? It is relatively easy to generate extra bedrooms, but the number of bathrooms already present is important because these are much more complicated to add in. Do you think you will be able to create a homely environment for your residents? Assisted Living Facility specialist Gene Guarino says that the acquisition price of the house is far less important than the cash flow it can generate. He preaches that it is worth to pay more for a house that will give you more rooms or that you can charge a higher monthly rate on as it will generate more income meaning that the way you pay back borrowed money will be the same and have no effect on the business. We’ll talk more about finance later. In addition to these factors, you must also focus on the location. You want to pick an upper middle class neighbourhood that your residents will feel comfortable in and to attract such customers. Ideally you should choose a central location where your residents can feel connected to society, rather than swept aside. Wouldn’t you prefer to be able to sit on the porch of your retirement centre and watch the people going about their day, children going to school, adults to work, rather than to sit in a quiet garden with no sign of life other than your peers and carers thinking of the last time you saw your grandchildren? You should consider the demographics of the region, profiling age range and income to determine demand and for your business and whether your target demographic can afford the rate that you plan to charge. You also need to know about other facilities in the area and whether you will be in direct competition, which may prompt you to offer different or premium services to avoid or beat your competition. Furthermore some states have regulations around how many Assisted Living Facilities there can be in one area or how close they can be to each other, so be wary of this. In a following paragraph we will cover some other regulations and legal stuff that you should have in mind, but first let’s consider renovations. Once you have settled on a location and chosen your property, you will have to do some redesigning - so what should you have in mind? The core values of Assisted Living are independence, quality of life, dignity and personal choice, so these should be reflected in the design. Your design should provide safety, ease of obtaining help and a homely atmosphere for residents while maintaining a feel of independence. Elderly people do not like moving houses, least of all leaving their homes, so try to stay away from making your facility seem clinical or institutional. There are plenty of large scale facilities available which feel more like hotels, so provide a more favourable option. To create a safe environment, have your facility comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act which focuses on accessibility. Particularly focus on wheelchair accessibility and manoeuvrability, and a well thought out bathroom design. Even if your initial wave of residents are not wheelchair bound, it’s better to be prepared for such eventualities than to have to adjust to this change when it occurs. To promote independence, it is a nice idea to install a kitchenette in all rooms so that residents have the option to cook, even though they have access to 3 cooked meals a day. Finally, consider the possibility of residents wanting to bring some of their own furniture in order to feel more at home, and make sure that the rooms are big enough to support this. Regulations that could impact where you buy your property include zoning laws, which determine how your property can be used, and state regulations which may limit how many rooms an Assisted Living Facility can have depending on State. Once you have obtained a property you need to get licensing and permits which vary from state to state and depending on the services that you offer. To find out about what licensing you need, simply visit your state’s government website and conduct a search for licensing information. You may need to jump through some hoops, again varying from state to state, in order to obtain the licence. Next you need to register your business for taxes and get business insurance. To protect your personal assets from liability you should organise your business as a Limited Liability Company and maintain a legal business entity. Liability need not be a huge concern as you may be thinking, you can properly protect yourself by setting up your business right, and cover can cost as little as a dollar a day since your business is not a medical facility. Finally you need to keep in line with other changing regulations, for example, complying with requirements for your staff. You can keep track of such regulations at ALFA (Assisted Living Federation America). The next step is to determine what services your Assisted Living Facility will provide. As a minimum you should offer a 24 hour emergency button, electronic security or night guards, laundry services, a barber & beauty salon, recreation and exercise facilities and transportation. You could partner up with local community centres or workout facilities to arrange activities. Consider what range of disabilities you will cater to, or will you specialise in a particular thing? With such an increase in this kind of investment, it may be necessary to create a niche or specialise in something to avoid or beat competition. Will you offer extra services at an additional rate? This could be extra activities or more support such as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) which include help with getting up, eating, bathing, etc. May be you offer a premium service such as healthy organic meals, or luxury bedding, which can make you stand out from other facilities. These things come under your business plan which should also include your resident capacity, your rates, any extra activities you plan to provide, your labouring costs and monthly supplies from foods to medical equipment and even bedding which will need periodical replacement. As with any business, it’s important to define your brand and get your name out. Having a web presence is a huge help with this so you absolutely must have a website - we will go over some more online essentials and website details a little later. The final and most important step is to hire an amazing team who will be there right from the start. Your working team are your most valuable asset and it is very important to find the right staff who really care, especially if you wish to take a more passive role in the business. You need to be able to trust your team to respond well in any given situation, and this goes beyond what you might be able to learn from a resume. Furthermore the individuals you hire need to align with the goals you have for your facility. Only the best team will be able to carry your dream forward, and as the initial contact with your clients, they need to set a good image for your company. For example, your receptionist or administrator will be the one to answer the first call your client makes to the facility to make some enquiries. You need to be able to trust this person to handle the call well, they must genuinely care about the situations discussed, offer solace and understanding while also providing all the relevant information. According to ALFA, consumers will only visit 20 percent of the facilities that they contacted, so you want that to include yours. But you can’t achieve excellent results like this without providing your staff the relevant training to have them functioning as you wish. You may have hired the best people in the world, but they still can’t read minds. Your team should consist of carers, kitchen and cleaning staff (you may combine some of these roles), management and administration staff, potentially including marketing and accounting professionals if you are not handling this yourself. Financing your Assisted Living Facility When it comes to making the investment in your property, you have several funding options available, from cash to a variety of loans and lenders and even a combination of these. The key point is that you do not need a lot of cash to set out on this venture, even though paying cash is the most simple option. About a quarter of American real estate investors put down cash, however not everyone can afford to do this, and sometimes even those who can will chose not to as they can generate greater returns investing elsewhere at the same time. Cash payments generally mean avoiding complications, but for those without the luxury of being able to throw that down, let’s look into other options. A conventional mortgage generally requires a 20% down payment but this may be a little higher for investment properties. The conventional mortgage is a great option and they usually have the lowest interest rates compared to other financial options. Alternatively you can go to a portfolio lender. It is often easier to get a mortgage approved by a portfolio lender since they do not have to conform to secondary market buyers’ regulations, and they can come with greater flexibility such as a smaller down payment or bi-monthly repayments to make it more manageable. Portfolio lenders are usually an investor-friendly option, however the downsides come in the form of greater prepayment fees and higher interest rates. Next we have FHA loans and 203K loans which are both backed by the Federal Housing Administration. These are only applicable to homeowners that intend to live in the property, and to properties with up to 4 units (leaving only 3 units to rent to comply with the terms of the loan.) 203K loans are particularly useful if you need to do renovations on the property as these improvements can be financed into the loan itself - and you will almost certainly need to make some improvements or renovations especially with regards to accessibility. Both these loans are a viable option if you are looking to run a small facility and to be heavily involved with the daily running of it, but they are also extremely limiting so you may be better off exploring other options. If you plan to offer affordable living to low income seniors, you may even be eligible for other special loans or grants depending on your state. Hard money loans are very much considered a last resort. They have the highest interest of all and are generally short term which can leave you in an uncomfortable situation when the period terminates. While they have certain benefits like not appearing on your personal credit report, not requiring credit references or income verification, it is best to steer clear of them. A slightly less compromising solution comes from private money loans. Where as a hard money lender is primarily is more focused on business, a private money lender is not usually a professional lender and is just interested in making greater returns with their money. There are lower fees and more flexibility when brokering a deal. You should still be careful when resorting to either of these options. Occasionally you may come across owner financing which means you make payments directly to the owner every month. The owner of the property technically can not have a mortgage on said property or outstanding loans, however some investors will chose to take this risk of foreclosure. You also have the outstanding option of home equity loans and lines of credit. With this option a bank will normally only allow you to take a loan of a certain percentage of your property’s value. Say that percentage is 90% and you have only paid off half of your original mortgage, then you will be allowed up to 40% of your property value in a loan. The benefits of this type of loan is that the bank will likely not be interested in the new property or your intentions with the money, they are only interested in your ability to pay it back, so the loan is based on the value of your primary residence rather than your new property. In addition this method can come with tax cuts and an agreeable interest rate. Another respectable option is to create a partnership. An equity partner can help you to finance a property you may otherwise not have been able to afford, and you can structure it any way you wish, but make sure to clearly piece all this together beforehand so you know exactly how involved your partner is expected to be in decision making and how the profits are divided later. That covers some primary finance options, but is by no means an exhaustive list. Speak with a financial advisor if you wish to discuss some more options. Managing your Assisted Living Facility To manage an Assisted Living Facility you will need an excellent administration system, this includes staff and software. You need to creat a risk management program to reduce risks which could end in lawsuits and detail procedure in case of such events. You need to be able to retain the excellent staff that you have chosen. Finally you need to market your business and work on your online presence, among other strategies, to keep the clients coming. Your administration team will basically handle everything for you, including the coordination of patient care and the supervision of employees. They will create the schedules, handle legal aspects and regulations, manage resident services, oversee billing, budgeting, employee training, hiring of staff and admissions to the facility, among other administrative duties. For this they will need excellent attention to detail. This is a lot to take on and in order to stay on top of everything they will need a sound operating system to assist them. ALIS provide an excellent option with easy to use software that can keep on top of paperwork, keep you in the loop with state regulations, and manage a range of tasks from billing to staff management and prescriptions. Some other software options include DayCenta, Tabula Pro, and PointClickCare. You may want to play around with a few of these before deciding what works best for you. It is of upmost importance to have a risk management program in place for every perceived risk with a clear procedure in the event of that risk coupled with ongoing training for employees. It is not uncommon for an Assisted Living Facility to end up in court because of overlooked issues, and clients feeling frustrated when the owner appears to only be in the business for the money. Here are some of the most common risks that have ended in a lawsuit against Assisted Living Facilities. Slips and falls Abuse (physical and sexual) Fleeing or wandering away Failure to supervise Wrongful death Changes in condition Improper administration of Medication Wound issues Transportation accidents Corporate negligence The best measures you can take are preventive, so learn from other people’s mistakes and be careful not to let these happen to your residents. Avoid common mistakes such as lack of communication between facilities such as your facility to hospital or vice versa. Keep floor surfaces well maintained to prevent trips and falls. Properly screen your employees to prevent risk of abuse occurring in your facility. Identify high risk residents for wandering behaviour and make sure they are properly supervised at relevant times. You also need to have enough staff to handle every situation, especially if there is an emergency. You may find that documentation of crucial conversations taking place between staff and physicians, residents, and family members can help in preventing procedural errors. Keeping pristine records all round is the best way to avoid mistakes and provide you with good evidence in case of any slip ups. Finally take the risk out of transportation by only having specifically trained members of staff handle transportation. With lines blurring between Assisted Living and Nursing Homes, it is also important to address the issue of age related memory loss and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. As previously mentioned, part of your assisted living care plan may be to offer speciality services such as care for these types of patients. If you are considering catering to Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, whether in full or as a unit within your facility, you will need a very specific setup such as lock-in units with keypad access, and specialist staff trained in memory care to attend to these patients who will require 24 hour care, including extras such as cognitive and physical therapies. To avoid any misunderstandings, you must have a close relationship with the family of the patient. They need to understand everything from the nature of the disease that the resident has, to what behaviours their loved one may begin to display so that they know what to expect. This is where it is most important that all conversations are properly recorded. If the resident has gotten worse and there has been a conversation with between the doctor and the family explaining new risks with this stage, it is vital that there are records of this so that the family can’t later plead unaware of the condition the resident had reached in the case of an accident. Catering to memory loss conditions presents a lot more risks and legal issues, so it is important to cover them all. The key points are communication and documentation. If, however, memory care is not something you plan (or are unable due to state regulations) to cater to, then you must be clear with new clients about your policies. Is the resident appropriate for your facility and what it does provide? If they have a progressive condition or if they develop a condition in your care, what are the procedures? It is important that your clients do not expect any more from your facility than what you actually provide. Being very clear about your services from the start and ensuring that there is no misleading information is vital, otherwise it can be used against you if anything goes wrong. Avoid complications later down the line by being honest rather than trying to be the best when it comes to marketing your facility. It is a good idea to have a lot of information about this available on your website including articles such as the difference between age related memory loss and memory conditions and potential alternatives if your facility is not right for these types of residents. Now to focus on the wonderful team you plan to hire. Just as you may see a high turnover in clients, you can expect the turnover of hourly paid staff to be high, too, unless you take some simple steps in management to make them feel valued. If you want the perfect team for your facility, you have to treat them well as well. A competitive salary may not be enough to make them stay, but rewarding staff for good work through schemes such as employee-of-the-month or quarter can make a huge difference. It’s important that managers stay connected with all employees, even when their shifts don’t match, and information and feedback should flow in both directions. Setting up performance reviews and goals can help keep employees motivated, making them want to stay. A final tip would be to work out a schedule with your employees that is predictable but maintains flexibility. Bad hours are a classic reason for switching jobs, so don’t let this be a problem that takes good employees away from you. Marketing an Assisted Living Facility Marketing an Assisted Living Facility can seem complex, and there certainly is a lot to take in, but it is not a step that you can skip. What’s the point of having an incredible facility if no one knows about it? In this section we will take you through some steps to simplify the task of marketing your facility, from handling your target audience to creating a strong online presence and more. Marketing your Assisted Living Facility involves handling a mix of emotions and a split target audience, so you must know how to address these. Let’s start with the target audience - of course the people in need of Assisted Living Facilities are usually those over 80 and are more often women than men, but the people doing the research for them are most likely to be their children, or the spouse of a child. Therefore it is important to target your marketing in a way that satisfies both generations, because if you can’t get both teams on board then your strategy is likely to fail. It may be true that the adult child does most of the research, but ultimately the it is the senior who is the customer, and it is generally the senior parent who makes the final decision based on their child’s research. Ignoring the senior’s role in the decision is an often made mistake, so don’t fall into this. How about the mix of emotions? Having to move your elderly loved one(s) out of their home is a difficult decision, and the emotions arising from this can be really conflicting. Clearly, navigating your way around this with your marketing can be very challenging, but with the appropriate sensitivity to the caregiver, this can be done. Just as you wouldn’t rush into buying a new home, you’re not going to rush into choosing a facility, whether for yourself or a loved one, without all the information necessary to determine if this is really where you see them living out the rest of their independent life. So how do you go about it? Consider the buyer journey. Before your customer even knows that they may be in need of an Assisted Living Facility, they begin their buyers journey with a simple web search along the lines of “what to do when my mother starts forgetting to take her medication” or “my mother is getting too old to properly care for my father, what can I do to help them both?”. With a little research they discover that Assisted Living may eventually be their answer, and you should be the one to tell them this! By running a kind of blog from your website and posting lots of information and articles on common queries and issues that caregivers may be running into, you establish yourself as an expert in the area and you will have already gained the clients trust. Before reaching the decision to move their loved ones into a facility, they are consistently finding answers through your website which puts you at the top of the game. Blogging is an essential tool in your marketing scheme, and this type of marketing is known as inbound marketing, which can also be done through social media, videos and email campaigns. It works by drawing the customers in through providing them with the information that they need. The customers find you through social media or blogging platforms which effectively removes the scepticism that comes with the sales pitch approach. By all means, you can still have a lovely video on your website homepage showing off your lovely home and wonderful staff, but it’s going to be expert advice that you offer that really sets your clients trust in your facility. Research shows that 81% of shoppers like to research online before making a purchase, so it is vital that you have the right information out there. Furthermore, 97% of consumers turn to a search engine when they are buying a product verses 15% who turn to social media. You can make the most of both sides of this statistic by sharing your posts across as many social media platforms as possible, which in turn should boost your SEO rank, meaning your page will appear higher up in search engines. Search Engine Optimisation can be a complex topic, but when your site is up and running you can hire someone to optimise your site for you. In terms of what information to provide, your website should be their textbook on assisted living. The more external links you can provide, such as resources, services, links to Medicare, etc, the higher your SEO rank. Consider every possible question or piece of information someone in this situation could need, for example how can they fund a move into a facility, then make sure you have articles and links for each one. Moving on to the website itself. As we mentioned, a vast majority of customers will search for a business online before committing to a decision, so your website needs to be out there doing the hard work for you - unlike you, it is available 24/7, so you never have to miss an opportunity. Your website needs to be welcoming, modern and professional, just as the way your wish your facility appear! Don’t forget simple details like ensuring your site displays well across multiple devices, a lot of people do research on mobile devices, so it’s no good if your site looks great on a desktop, but won’t configure properly on a mobile. In a way, your website acts as a sales person for you, and it is your chance to make a first impression on people. If your site is clean, well organised, and easy to use, people will think the same about your business and it is far more likely to attract new customers than a shoddy, outdated website. The next goal for your site is ease of contact. It’s no good making potential clients feel at home for them to find that they have no way of contacting you. Your contact details should be displayed on every page of the site so that minimal searching is involved from the moment a client decides they want to make contact. If you have your site linked up with your social media accounts as suggested, this provides another easy and familiar way for people to make contact. Linking in with social media lets people see that your business is current and active which instills confidence. But apart from being readily contactable, it’s a good idea to have newsletter options, or offer a more in depth article or report in exchange for the client’s email. This free offer gives the client something they want, maybe it’s detailed information, or a free lunch or tour, at the same time as converting them from a visitor to a lead. Once you have their email address you can follow up by sending them updates, information, event details, share your new blog posts with them, keep them in the loop with email newsletters and so on, all the while building your relationship with them. One day they will be ready to commit to a buying decision and they will turn to you. The final goal of your website should be data collection. In order to keep your site current and optimised you can use a range of web analytic tools available to track your visitors, see peek traffic times, find out what they do or what they use most on your site, and most importantly get an idea of conversion rates of visitors into leads. Using this data to optimise your site creates a better user experience which should retain visitors, as we previously discussed, when a customer gets a good impression from your website, they get a good feeling about your business too. Keeping your site optimised also means checking that all your links work and updating those that don’t. All this adds to your SEO rating! We already touched on the importance of social media, for example, using it to share those all important blog posts across different platforms to get your content, leading to your website, in front of as many people as possible. While you can also use it to build a network and to interact with your target audience, social platforms are the best advertising tool for hooking people on your content and reeling them in to your site to discover more. Make sure to use keywords and tags that your target audience would use when searching for such information, and create adverts on social media using the same keywords. It is equally important to promote your facility’s social media everywhere. Your website should have click-through social media icons at the head or foot of every page, all your blog posts should have these icons, these icons should also make up the electronic signature of all your employees so that these links are featured in every email. If you have a business account for your facility on Facebook, then you probably already have a list of customers reviews and ratings. Whether you simply link this in or you create a dedicated page on your website, it is so important to have the opinions of your clients on display. Nobody wants to take your word for it, of course you think your facility is the best, but people take real value from other people’s reviews and tend to trust them as much as a recommendation from a friend. Satisfied customers spreading the word is the purest form of marketing. It is a good idea to collect this data through surveys or to encourage your clients, particularly the family members who did the initial research and are now satisfied with their relative’s situation, to hop onto Facebook and write you a review. Another method based around recommendations is to build a referral network. The elderly put a lot of trust in social workers and medical care providers, so these professionals can generate a fair amount of referrals for you. Visit their practices, build a good professional relationship with them and provide them with up to date information, brochures and posters. Get involved with a local business that serves health care providers, get as many links as you can. All the extra effort should pay off. Most of the marketing strategies we have discussed so far are based around having a strong online presence, a good website and active social media, but this next tip involves meeting your leads in person. You can have various offers and deals in place to help you through drier seasons, maybe a first month for free or help with selling their old house, but something you should always have on offer is tours or open house days. This way potential clients can come and see for themselves, they get to meet with and talk to your staff and more importantly to your residents to get a real feel for the place. Allow them to get familiar with your facility and your team over a beverage and a snack, as all their questions are answered. And don’t stop at open days and tours, you can use event marketing to your advantage, with so much stuff done online these days, people warm very nicely to human contact. Celebrate holidays like Easter and Christmas with Easter and egg hunts and a visit for, Santa for the grandchildren of residents. Host open seminars on important and relevant topics such as health and dementia. You can also partner up with charitable organisations, libraries, religious groups, etc to host joint events. Don’t forget to get the word out for these through your social media platforms! In review, you need to think carefully about what messages you are sending, and if these messages are inclusively targeting both halves of your target audience. Marketing strategy is constantly evolving, so be monitoring what is working for you. Your goal should be to provide the lifestyle that seniors and their children expect, and market that lifestyle effectively. You need to focus on inbound marketing, your facilities online presence which includes your website and your social media, and to build up a good reputation throughout your community. With all this running smoothly, you should have no problem attracting customers. So, with marketing techniques covered, we shouldn’t forget to mention payment sources. Medicare and Medicaid currently do not cover services such as those provided by Assisted Living Facilities - a key distinction from nursing homes. However some states, including Oregon, have created Medicaid waivers to help pay for the services, though this is yet to become a widespread practice. That said, governments are realising the necessity to promote cost-effective alternatives to nursing home care. In 1987, an initiative was created to prevent ADL individuals from entering nursing homes by requiring states to develop and implement pre-admission screening programs. Since then, screening is now mandatory both for elderly individuals who receive federal funding, and for those who are self funding nursing home services. With the government eager to make cuts to Medicaid funding, it is surely only a matter of time before waivers are issue. State funding for Assisted Living is not far off, which should reduce turnover rates which usually depend on personal resources, and the market broadens. Either way, affordable residences should be a priority for the time being in order to serve all ranges of the target population, easily achieved with good planning. To end on a light note, let’s hear some more resident stories. It may be tempting to think of moving out of your home and into a care facility as the end of the line, but in fact you should view it as a new beginning! You get to become part of a new community and make some valuable new relationships between your carers, your peers and you may even find new romance. Take Andre and Maria for example who met during a bridge session one evening at the Assisted Living Facility they were living in, not long after Andre moved in. They really hit it off finding they had a lot in common. They continued to meet up on a regular basis, taking walks around the garden together, attending the same activities throughout the day and hanging out with each other in the evenings. When valentines days came around they became an official item and have been enjoying life together ever since. Just as, if not more important than romance, we have the role of friends. According to the family of a resident named Brenda, she faced the decision of moving into an Assisted Living Facility shortly after her husband Robert died. She was reluctant to make the move as she felt listless and was convinced there wasn’t much point in moving when she felt so near the end. Brenda’s family say they saw an amazing transformation in her after making the move and believe that if it wasn’t for the friendships she formed at the facility she moved to, she would have had a much shorter life. They couldn’t more grateful for the opportunity provided to her. Some people move to these facilities with no family left at all, so their peers become their new family. Lucia is one of these people, and as a long term resident, she took comfort in welcoming new residents and making them feel at home. Her warm and loving heart has been such a life line for certain residents that she has earned the nick name “Mama” and even the families of other residents are grateful to her role in the community and the help that she has offered their loved one, that they even view her as extended family. Moving into Assisted Living is far from “the end of the line” as you can see from theses stories, so don’t fail to share some of your residents’ heart warming stories on your site to encourage your potential new comers to share this view of new beginnings when they have to make the choice of moving in. Now that we have been through everything from getting started and laying out your plan, to various finance options, things to consider in the management sector, and the all important marketing of your home, you have all the information you need to start and run an Assisted Living Facility. Follow the clear plan you have created to bring it all together, not forgetting to account for any potential hiccups. I wish you your best of luck in setting out to realise your dreams!