The Assisted Living Identity Crisis
November 26th, 2017

Assisted Living owners and operators – are you a post-acute care provider?

If so, you should probably tell somebody, because no one else thinks you are.

But what do YOU say? Are you a post-acute care provider or not?

What is a post-acute care provider?

The concept is pretty simple: since the term “post-acute” is used ONLY in the context of healthcare, it means you are committed to managing the overall healthcare needs of your residents. It also means that healthcare occupies a prominent position in your dialogue, your marketing, and your website.  By making this commitment, you hold yourself out as meriting referrals from the healthcare system.

It also means that you have adapted an Integrated Care Model in which your organization puts healthcare on equal footing with your more customary hospitality and real estate focus.

Why should assisted living be post-acute care providers?

Once again, straightforward answers:

  • Profit – a commitment to managing the healthcare needs of your residents will reduce resident turnover, increase length of stay, and stabilize census.
  • Survival – if you don’t evolve away from the antiquated “hospitality only” model and accept that you cannot separate seniors from their healthcare, your competitors surely will.  And if you’re ambivalent about whether or not to be a post-acute care provider, then your ambivalence is music to your competitor’s ears, because you will not be given a place in healthcare referral networks.

Finally, I leave you with a challenge shown in the following Figure.

Post acute

For a rapidly growing population of fragile seniors, Assisted Living should be THE DOMINANT REFERRAL. The industry needs to go out there and take its rightful place in our healthcare system and put itself in the center of patient referrals. But this also means that owners and operators must evolve to adapting Integrated Care and becoming post-acute care providers.






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