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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are in the research stage with our mom and here are some things we are considering:

1) Some places will do an assessment of the elder & decide if they can lock in a rate for later more intensive care (ie they allow you to live in independent living for a certain monthly fee akin to rent, on top of the downpayment of $1Mish of which you get 10-20% taken off the top but the rest is returned when your parent's unit is eventually resold when they either move on to assisted living or to memory care or die). So, the rent you pay for IL is the same as the AL or MC monthly fee, but your parent has to be in pretty good shape to qualify for this and not all places have this model.

2) Lots of different places have different meal plan options just like different colleges and you can run the math on the various options

3) The reason to go into IL (primary one for us) is that those people get priority access to spots (which are vastly more limited at most places) in assisted living and/or memory care. If you wait until your parent has dementia, most MC places won't take them. Then you are looking at exorbitant costs for 24-7 in home care

4) FYI lots of the good places have multi year wait lists so it is good your parents are getting their thoughts together well before they might absolutely need to move into this type of place[/quote]

My parents entered a CCRC into IL in their mid 70s.  They/we paid the higher entry fee and higher "monthly rent" so that if/when they require more advanced care, there are no extra costs (okay, one extra cost---to go from 1 meal per day to 3, so about $500/month).  The other spouse gets to keep the apartment for no additional cost (if they can still be in IL).  So we basically prepaid for the advanced care.  It may cost us more over time, but we did it because we are 3K miles from parents and need to know if something happens they are well taken care of.  They are guaranteed a spot in assisted living/memorycare/nursing care at ANY TIME, as long as they meet the conditions.  
Another perk is the parent still in IL can easily visit the other daily, they can even bring them back to the apartment/to meals if that is safe.  This is all done without ever leaving the connected complex of buildings.

If you try to enter this facility for advanced care without being on this plan/already in IL, there is often a long waitlist.

So my parents are loving life in IL, have no concerns as everything is taken care of, biweekly cleaning, all maintenance (if an appliance breaks, it's fixed within 24 hours typically), they have rides to the stores and if you prearrange it you can pay for rides to doctor appointments and other outside trips (for a very low fee).  They get approximately 1 meal each per day, but oftentimes spend less (soup and salad bar is much less than the $ amount they get daily), so it amounts to 1.5 meals a day with leftovers from the dinner that are enough for 2 persons to have lunch the next day.  So really all they need to do is breakfast on their own.

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