Issues Affecting the Financial Sustainability of Life Care Communities
Problem Statement
Issues Affecting the Financial Sustainability of Life Care Communities
A life care community is a type of continuing care retirement community that offers nursing care, independent living, assisted living, and many other services for the persons who subscribe to the services. However, life care communities are not as popular as the senior housing services that have been available for years. The care communities require that a person pays a set deposit before being assigned the care or asylum (Raphael, Ahrens, & Fowler, 2001). The financial success of these organizations relies heavily on the efficiency of the management systems. The financial sustainability of these institutions has been in question over the period because of shortage of resources, especially due to non-payment of dues. Over and above the institutions have been receiving people who need a higher level of care beyond what the institutions can provide.
One of the problems affecting their success of the care communities is the discrepancy between the required level of level of care and what is offered in these institutions. In numerous cases the admitted persons have a high demand for medical or assisted living needs, which imply that the organization spends more time and money than what is offered which affects its sustainability (Katz, 2003). Additionally, in as much as the persons seeking asylum or care are required to pay large deposits, their needs during their future stay in the communities could prove costly and beyond what they paid.
As such, the management of such organizations ought to take some calculated measures while making a decision, which applicants should be accepted in their care communities. One of the most efficient ways to accomplish this, in the light of this problem, is to develop a policy where the applicants have to pass certain levels of medical requirements (Kaven, 2013). Additionally, they should require that the individuals have guarantors who can be readily consulted if the persons fail to comply with future payments, which mostly occurs since the seniors seeking care are no longer working (Perley, 2016). The medical requirement policy, on the other hand, would ensure that the applicants do not have costly health conditions, which could affect the cost efficiency of the organizations.
References
Katz, J. (2003). Managing dying residents. End of Life in Care Homes: A Palliative Care Approach, 59-74. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198510710.003.0004
Kaven, M. C. (2013). Public--Private Public Model: Managing Care and Strengthening Communities? PsycEXTRA Dataset. doi:10.1037/e622932009-001
Perley, R. (2016). Managing the long-term care facility: Practical approaches to providing quality care.
Raphael, C., Ahrens, J., & Fowler, N. (2001). Financing end-of-life care in the USA. Journal of the Loyal Society of Medicine, 458–461.
