Best source for NoVA Assisted Living pricing, reviews, etc?

[Anonymous]

In a great rush, I’m trying to investigate assisted living options for my federal retiree father in law while he is in an acute rehab facility. He is 84 and has lived independently until now. He doesn’t age a lot of liquid savings but he does have a good pension that I’m hoping can get him into a reasonable assisted living place. Since he should basically have no other expenses, I’m hoping we can find a place for around $5-6k/month. He doesn’t need fancy amenities, just a single room with weekly housekeeping, medication management, and 3 meals a day with access to rides for medical appointments.

Any idea where I should start? There are so many sites online but none put the actual pricing up as I can find.

(I have read places will jack up their pricing quickly and pretend that needs have changed so I’m ideally looking for any not for profit places!)

[Anonymous]

They didn’t take it well. My dad got turned down by three kids. He died angry about it. My mom tried to couch as her helping us. How? By that point, we had an empty nest. She couldn’t walk unaided.

[Anonymous]

Hi. Unfortunately, there is no easy and transparent way to obtain pricing unless you contact each place individually. Then get ready for sticker shock. $5-$6k won’t get you much in this area. You may find a group home or very simple accommodations somewhere. In Montgomery County, you would realistically be closer to $7k for independent living, which can quickly rise based on level of care and needs.

[Anonymous]

Following up on my post: there is NO good source for this, and the worst turn I made was signing up for A Place For Mom where I just got a ton of calls and texts and was out in touch with a couple of corporate chain places with kind of sleazy pricing models. Literally one of the sales guys for a place in Manassas was like, “Look, come and sit down and I’m sure we can do a deal.” It was giving used car sales vibes, as my son said. Gross.

What was most useful to me was reading ALL of the inspection and licensing info for places near us on the Virginia state licensensing site for long term care facilities (including assisted living). They had detailed inspection and complaint reports. That helped me immediately rule out a bunch of olaces. Then I called places and asked about vacancies and pricing, explaining he had a good pension but little savings. That ruled out a bunch of others that were way over his price range. I read Google reviews and a bunch of other review sites. And we visited a few places in person.

We ended up choosing Spring Hills Mount Vernon in Alexandria. (I wrote more details about it on another thread today.)

I wanted to leave this year in case anyone else is hopeless in this search….this place was actually AFFoRDABLE on a federal pension for my FIL ($3800/mo), had one up front community fee of $2000 and a $250 charge for his call-alert button thing he wears around his neck, but no other “buy in”. To be clear it’s not fancy…no pickleball courts or pool or workout room, but he wouldn’t have used those anyway. But his apartment is really spacious for an efficiency, they have an in-house medical practice that comes once a week (which he loves because going to the doctor is basically his hobby), transportation to other appointments within 5 miles, 3 meals a day, laundry, housekeeping.

(Seriously, as I type this, I’m almost envious…that’s not that much more than my mortgage and I am in my mid 50’s and would love to live in my own apartment and have no house maintenance or lawn care and get all three meals prepared and have someone do my laundry!)

I do HIGhLY recommend reading the state licensing inspection reports and CMS reports if you are looking for nursing homes or assisted livings. It was just like when I searched for a home day care for my son 12 years ago…almost everyone has inspection violations but some are very minor, like paperwork stuff…and then you see other really serious ones like people being given the wrong medications or people who need assistance with eating having trays left out of their reach and then the nurse recording that the patient declined to eat…and that’s on days when they know an inspector is there! I can only imagine how much worse it is when they’re not on their best behavior.

I would offer to share my research but rather than my usual MO of making a detailed google spreadsheet, I have notes on my phone and saved in my browser and a zillion pieces of paper in notebooks because this all happened so fast over Christmas (literally we were emptying his apartment on Christmas Day.)

Don’t rely on sites like a Place for Mom. They will only refer you to places that pay them commissions. And there was nothing they told me (aside from
Sleazy sales pitches) that I didn’t already know from my research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following up on my post: there is NO good source for this, and the worst turn I made was signing up for A Place For Mom where I just got a ton of calls and texts and was out in touch with a couple of corporate chain places with kind of sleazy pricing models. Literally one of the sales guys for a place in Manassas was like, “Look, come and sit down and I’m sure we can do a deal.” It was giving used car sales vibes, as my son said. Gross.

What was most useful to me was reading ALL of the inspection and licensing info for places near us on the Virginia state licensensing site for long term care facilities (including assisted living). They had detailed inspection and complaint reports. That helped me immediately rule out a bunch of olaces. Then I called places and asked about vacancies and pricing, explaining he had a good pension but little savings. That ruled out a bunch of others that were way over his price range. I read Google reviews and a bunch of other review sites. And we visited a few places in person.

We ended up choosing Spring Hills Mount Vernon in Alexandria. (I wrote more details about it on another thread today.)

I wanted to leave this year in case anyone else is hopeless in this search….this place was actually AFFoRDABLE on a federal pension for my FIL ($3800/mo), had one up front community fee of $2000 and a $250 charge for his call-alert button thing he wears around his neck, but no other “buy in”. To be clear it’s not fancy…no pickleball courts or pool or workout room, but he wouldn’t have used those anyway. But his apartment is really spacious for an efficiency, they have an in-house medical practice that comes once a week (which he loves because going to the doctor is basically his hobby), transportation to other appointments within 5 miles, 3 meals a day, laundry, housekeeping.😀

Thanks so much for posting this. I am sorry that you faced such time intensive decisions.

We are facing some of these decisions soon as there's just me and my adult children, and I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's. I thought it would be good to start pricing out some options. I would prefer to stay here in northern Virginia as that is where all my docs and friends are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following up on my post: there is NO good source for this, and the worst turn I made was signing up for A Place For Mom where I just got a ton of calls and texts and was out in touch with a couple of corporate chain places with kind of sleazy pricing models. Literally one of the sales guys for a place in Manassas was like, “Look, come and sit down and I’m sure we can do a deal.” It was giving used car sales vibes, as my son said. Gross.

What was most useful to me was reading ALL of the inspection and licensing info for places near us on the Virginia state licensensing site for long term care facilities (including assisted living). They had detailed inspection and complaint reports. That helped me immediately rule out a bunch of olaces. Then I called places and asked about vacancies and pricing, explaining he had a good pension but little savings. That ruled out a bunch of others that were way over his price range. I read Google reviews and a bunch of other review sites. And we visited a few places in person.

We ended up choosing Spring Hills Mount Vernon in Alexandria. (I wrote more details about it on another thread today.)

I wanted to leave this year in case anyone else is hopeless in this search….this place was actually AFFoRDABLE on a federal pension for my FIL ($3800/mo), had one up front community fee of $2000 and a $250 charge for his call-alert button thing he wears around his neck, but no other “buy in”. To be clear it’s not fancy…no pickleball courts or pool or workout room, but he wouldn’t have used those anyway. But his apartment is really spacious for an efficiency, they have an in-house medical practice that comes once a week (which he loves because going to the doctor is basically his hobby), transportation to other appointments within 5 miles, 3 meals a day, laundry, housekeeping.

Thank you for posting this. I am sorry you had such time-intensive decisions to make. We are facing this soon as it is just me and my adult children and I was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. It's about time for me to start locating and pricing options.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for posting this. I am sorry you had such time-intensive decisions to make. We are facing this soon as it is just me and my adult children and I was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. It's about time for me to start locating and pricing options.