Retirement communities vary a great deal in the kind of housing and services available, but the essential element of them all is that this is primarily independent living with recreational facilities, health services and social programs made a part of the community (Ferrell & Coyle, 2010 ). So how do you pay for retirement community? This is a question which lingers among the mind so f many people.
Essentially, many early retirement communities were constructed by religious groups or fraternal organizations that especially required new residents to turn over their entity operating the retirement community in return for lifetime care and services. There are several types of facilities which take care of the elderly. However, in this paper we are going to be looking at two types of these facilities, that is, the continuing care retirement communities and the skilled nursing facilities.
Continuing care retirement communities is a term that also represents a broad spectrum of alternative housing arrangements. They formerly were referred to as Life Care communities(Weisman, 2003). A common thread among Continuing Care Retirement Communities is the providing of housing, meals, nursing home and other health related services.
Some of the advantages of the Continuing Care treatment include having an option whereby the life care represents an alternative to institutionalization for older people who can no longer maintain their own homes for both health and financial reasons, but who do not want or need the extensive care provided in a nursing home (Morrison, Bennett, Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (New York, & Health, 1986).
Unlike nursing homes and other retirement communities, CCRCs give their aging residents the assurance they can live independently as long as possible and they can receiving nursing care and support services as long as needed. Another advantage is that the CCRCs are that the quality of care may be better than in any other types of long term care facilities. They also tend to use health care resources less than the residents of comparable faculties.
These favorable health status factors may be attributed to the availability of prepaid health care and other community services; they may also be influenced by the self – selection process, which reflects the better health and higher income of those who are choosing CCRCs (Morrison, Bennett, Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (New York, & Health, 1986). Skilled nursing services or skilled rehabilitation services are services which are provided on an in-stay program for the elderly in the society.
They involve working with qualified and skilled personnel in the medical field. Advantages of Skilled Nursing facilities are based on the fact that the inpatient unit has some advantages and some disadvantages. Advantages include: patients requiring palliative care have familiar place to go during the exacerbations and remissions that come with progressive disease(Ferrell & Coyle, 2010 ).
Unit staff and policies are under the control and financing of experts trained as a team who are skillful at difficult care and communications. Patients may get palliative care earlier if other care teams see the advantages of this approach and trust that patients will receive good care. Some of the disadvantages include the fact that it can prevent others from learning valuable palliative care techniques if the center staffs are seen as “specialized” and are secluded in one area.
If the center transfers include a transfer of doctors to a center specialist, patients and families feel abandoned by their primary team in the final hours and lastly, hospice providers fear loss of the hospice philosophy when the center exists in the context of the general hospital (Ferrell & Coyle, 2010 ).
References
Ferrell, B. R., & Coyle, N. (2010 ). Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morrison, I. A., Bennett, R., Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (New York, N., & Health, N. Y. (1986). Continuing care retirement communities: political, social, and financial issues. New York: Routledge.
Weisman, S. (2003). A guide to elder planning: everything you need to know to protect yourself legally & financially. New Jersey: FT Press.