Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC) – Everything you need to know
Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC) – Everything you need to know
A lot of careful planning and thought goes into where you want to spend the rest of your life after retirement. You need to see if the place fulfils your needs and requirement as you have planned. A very popular option called CCRCs is becoming the top option for seniors these days.
What are Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs)?
Continuing Care Retirement Communities or abbreviated as CCRS are retirement communities, an alternative residential option for elderly that provides supple housing options like independent living, assisted living, and nursing home care.
What is a CCRC?
A CCRC is a place where one would have access to all the world-class amenities and facilities and different level of care as per the need within a single ground. It gives you a warm and welcoming environment that can be you home away from home.
The biggest benefit of this kind of facility is the continuance of caregiving. You do not have to worry about relocating or leaving everything behind even if your health deteriorates.
Wouldn’t it be great if after years of working, this one worry of where after retirement is taken away from you? Continuing Care Retirement Communities does exactly that for you. You deserve to relax and enjoy the remaining part of your life without constantly worrying about who is going to take care of you and where will you live.
Your energy should rather go into exploring new hobbies, meeting like-minded people and choosing some friends out of it, explore, do whatever you want to you and relax in peace.
How Do Continuing Care Retirement Communities Work
You are healthy now so there is no worry. But what happens down the road when your health deteriorates. Moving into a CCR community offers you the peace of mind that you will be taken care off by expert professionals as and when needed. Staying here ensures that all your needs are taken care of even when you are not fit enough to supervise.
You will stay within a campus with top-class facilities,personalised help and care options are per your lifestyle. The staffs are on campus & ready 24/7, all day of the week for any kind of need by the seniors living in the community.
Our continuing care retirement communities a good idea
If you do not have a financial constraint and love to be around people of the same age group, CCRCs are a great idea for you! You get the best facility, best care and socialising group under one roof. On the other hand, seniors with fixed monthly income and financially crunchy need to give it a thought before getting themselves into a CCRC.
PROS & CONS of Continuing Care Retirement Communities
Before you decide to move into a Continuing Care Retirement Community, it’s important to know different aspects of it which would be helpful in your decision. Let’s look are some of the benefits that CCRCs provide.
The facility as you require.
The most beautiful thing about a continuing Care Retirement Community is the varied options that they present you with about your stay. Off course every senior would have a different need and want about how they want to spend their retired life, CCRCs have all of that sorted out for you.
If you want to continue living like an independent individual, they have an independent living facility for you. Seniors can live independently while still having access to all the support (emotional/social or medical) they need.
Then others might need a little support with their day to day activity, so they have assisted living services for that. 24/7 Nursing care facilities are available for the seniors who would need medical assistance more than others round the clock. Therefore on a whole picture, CCRCs have all the things as per your requirement and need.
Flexibility for Partners with different care needs
If you are a couple planning to move to a Continuing Care Retirement Community, Please be worry-free about your different medical needs.
CCRC help you with your specific needs without pulling you apart from each other.
Even if the need forces one to move to a nursing care & other being in independent living, it wouldn’t hurt too much because everything is on a single campus. You guys can see each other every day and socialise with the facilities available on the ground together.
Everything in one place
When you stay at a CCRC, they ensure that you have all level of care needed at any point under a single roof. Everything is taken care of and the residents enjoy a stress-free living with all the liberty of living on their own. Things like house maintenance, housekeeping, transportation, laundry, utilities as per the need etc are all the responsibility of the staff.
This gives the senior much-needed peace and worries free life to let them enjoy their retirement. This also helps the families of the seniors have a peace of mind that their loved ones are properly cared and living a good life surrounded by friends.
On-Campus Health Care support
One of the important benefits of living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community is the availability of 24/7 health care support system. With age, it becomes important to have this added security around. Since there is a varied caregiving facility within the retirement community such as assisted living and nursing care, seniors can hop on to different services as per their health requirement.
Having this kind of health care support on campus makes it easy for the older adults to have access to doctors, nurses or any medical service at the time of need faster than anywhere possible. The medical staff would also be familiar with the elderly & their medical history which helps them take better & informed decisions regarding their medical issue. All of these happen under one roof, so seniors would not have to take on the extra stress of leaving their family like friends and familiar ground to go somewhere else.
Different amenities
When we talk about the perks of a CCRC, all the facilities starting from basic needs to higher ones are available.
Support staff for housekeeping, facility for Transportation, Areas for recreational activities, cook on demand are available to name a few.
With all of this, you also get a social network of people with similar interests and walk of life to connect to. The sense of community adds to happiness.
Security
Security is another added benefit that you get while living in a CCRC. The campus is well organised and security layers are added to ensure no wrongdoings. Dedicated security staffs are available within the area to take care of the security of everyone living with the community.
Cost & financial risk
We know that nothing comes for free, but good service is quite expensive. Seniors who live on a fixed monthly income can have a hard time going for this facility.
If you go by the studies, CCRCs are by far the most expensive form of retirement living. They have a substantial fee for each facility that they provide to you. It’s a huge financial investment and can be regretful later if you don’t like your life within the community.
Needs a lot of planning & thought before moving in
Some of the norms of CCRC needs the residents to sign a contract and make decisions about their medical facility and living options for the rest of their lives at once.
Everyone might not be comfortable in taking these decisions straight away and might be sceptical about entering into a contract that again would cause them expenses in future if they want to change something.
Same age group only
The community remains filled with older adults and seniors only so some Seniors might not adjust to this surrounding if they are habituated or like to be around people of all age group including kids and teenagers like a family.
A new lifestyle
Adjusting to a new place is always difficult. To get rooted away from a community & a house that you have been living in for years and settle into a new place & surrounding can be daunting. While the Community makes all the effort to make you comfortable, it still is tough to adjust to a new lifestyle altogether.
Continuing Care Retirement Communities VS
Assisted living is a type of service & community where the residents need little help in their daily living activities. They receive help in their daily chores including bathing, eating and dressing. It is a concept that saves you from all the difficulty as there are trained staff who are there to support & “Assist” you with your daily living. Many assisted living residents move to a nursing home while some return home when their situation gets better.
On the other hand, CCRCs offers all level of care in one location without having to move anywhere. They let their resident “age in one place” without having them to relocate based on their medical condition. They offer assisted living as well as independent living & nursing home care as required by the seniors on a single location.
Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Arizona AZ
There are a lot of facilitated CCRCs in Arizona with amazing service, here is the list of some of the best ones.
Rivers Edge Assisted Living Yuma
V at Grayhawk
The terraces of Phoenix
Vi at Silverstone
Fountain view village