The Value of Small Assisted Living Homes
Happy Assisted Living Week!
Small Assisted Living Homes should be given extra recognition during this National Assisted Living Week, September 12 – 16, 2022. In Arizona, we have exactly 1,700 licensed assisted living homes, representing 13,826 available beds as of May 1, 2022. If each of those beds were filled with a resident paying the average assisted living cost of care of $3,900.00 (based on Genworth’s 2020 cost of care survey), that alone would be valued at a $53,921,400.00 contribution of services to society annually in Arizona. Typically, there’s 36 work hours per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in salaries paid to staff. Food costs, utilities, landscaping and pest control, professional services, entertainment and other costs that go into providing assisted living services directly and indirectly contribute to the economy. Heck, even licensing fees help support government workers.
An assisted living homeowner in Arizona is subject to no less than twenty specific regulatory areas, each of which are broken into numerous sub-sections, ranging from administrative tasks to physical plant standards. Water temperatures must be between 95 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit; fingerprint clearance cards must be on file and verified within a certain number of days of hire or volunteer service; routine evacuation and emergency drills are required to be documented; and so many more miscellaneous policies apply to this small business segment. Yet 1,700 assisted living licensees have chosen to subject themselves to such restrictions on their business freedoms. If you count behavioral health homes and adult foster care homes, the small business tally tops 2,000 in this niche alone in Arizona.
Our focus is on the 1,700 assisted living homeowners and operators – in Arizona alone - who have shown the resiliency to serve a very vulnerable population of mostly elderly individuals, needing assistance with their activities of daily living around the clock every single day of the year. These business owners deserve recognition and applause from the media, and the very government that imposes the regulations on how they serve that clientele. These business owners generally do not get the positive kudos that they deserve.
How many state inspectors or media reporters have sat at the bedside of a dying hospice patient who is not a family member, but someone they might have cared for daily for years, maybe reading bible verses or holding their hand and talking softly to that person to provide them comfort in their final hours? I bet we’d get nearly a 100% positive response from the managers and staff at these 1,700 homes, who have served in this sad role, often on many occasions during the course of their career. The COVID-19 crisis tested the mettle of many assisted home owners. Burnout and stress were rampant, particularly when AZ DHS was issuing new visitation guidelines via emails distributed at 4 pm on Friday afternoons before long holiday weekends. Sadly, many workers and residents succumbed to the pandemic, but so many others were resilient and persevered.
I lived through that as an assisted living owner/operator, and like to think that my team and I came out stronger and a little smarter on the other side. Although I no longer personally own and operate assisted living homes, I’ve made it my mission to help assisted living home owners continue to operate their businesses in a compliant and profitable manner, providing the care so desperately needed by the residents and their families who can no longer safely care for their loved ones.
Indeed, someone turning age 65 today has almost a 70% chance of needing some type of long-term care services and support in their remaining years. Of those, 20% will need care support for longer than 5 years. On average, women need care longer (3.7 years) than men (2.2 years). (See https://acl.gov/ltc/basic-needs/how-much-care-will-you-need) I’ve also read that today’s baby boomers (born between the mid-1940’s and mid-1960’s) will likely spend more of their life caring for an aging parent, than they did raising their own children.
Assisted living homeowners step in to fill that need in a setting that is home-like and not institutional. They are the unsung small business heroes, and this week, all of them deserve to be thanked. We appreciate you and are here for you.
Look for more weekly blog posts on topics of interest to Arizona Assisted Living and Behavioral Health operators. The information herein is intended to be educational and an introduction to the subject matter presented. It is NOT specific legal advice to be relied upon for specific individual circumstances. Contact your own legal professional or reach out to our firm if you would like specific advice on this topic. We welcome topic suggestions! Write to info@pinkowskilaw.com to recommend a particular subject for us to explore.