✨✨General Discussions

My wife and I are looking to move to a CCRC in the Raleigh area in a year or two. She says we should have a lawyer look over the contract before signing, but I don't know how to find a qualified lawyer, and imagine paying a guy a sum of money only to get his answer "Looks good to me". Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences?

In addition, I don't know if there is any advisor that can tell us the financial sustainability better than the actuaries that have performed a study and produced a report on said facility?

Thanks, Mike

Mike, I suggest you pay an evaluation site to look into the CCRCs you are considering, especially the financials. Here is the site we used:

https://mylifesite.net/

Here are 2 articles you may find helpful that are good intros to CCRC (Life Plan Community) decisions:

https://www.humangood.org/senior-care-planning/paying-for-senior-care

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/basics/info-2017/continuing-care-retirement-communities.html

Lastly, we would recommend buying in and immediately moving into the facility and experiencing everything possible quickly. Most CCRCs have a refund policy (lose 2% of your entrance fee/month). If the CCRC you chose is not for you, don't be afraid to quickly back out. Selecting and moving to a CCRC is a big decision. You will spend the rest of your life there! Good luck...

-Bob

Michael, CCRCs like Erickson Living won’t change the agreement even if the lawyer finds something questionable. In our CCRC I can’t even get management to clarify questionable language - in light of the law - in our agreement.

Well, that's discouraging, Enver, but, I guess if they changed something in the contract for one person, they would have to change it for everyone. Also discouraging about them not clarifying the ambiguous stuff in the contract. I've already had the experience of their salesman ignoring a question (sort of skirting the issue, but not answering it).

Bob, I have seen the mylifesite webpage, and it's filled with lots of articles, but I didn't know they offered any service. At one time last year, I saw a video with Brad interviewing a woman who was a lawyer (I think), and considered writing to her, but I was unable to find that video again.

Michael, I just went to myLifeSite web and you are right. Their "Premium Member" financial comparisons are nowhere to be found! We did ours last in 2018. Was very helpful. Seems like cost was about $300 and I think it compared the financials of 3 communities. I guess you will have to do your own, comparing Cash on Hand, Net Operating Margin, Debt Service Coverage, etc.

As a personal note after having investigated 4-5 and living in one now for the past 6 years, I would recommend a non-profit, vs a for-profit organization. For-profit may be more efficient but they have 2 clients - the residents and the shareholders. Non-profit should have just one - the residents.

Sorry my comparison recommendation was no longer available (too many lawsuits or angry providers?) Good luck again.

Check out the NaCCRA Consumer Guide and Financial Soundness Handbook on the website.

Since NC had disclosure statements online, you will be able to check measures for financial soundness.

Ann MacKay

It seems, however, that the distinction between non-profit and for-profit CCRCs has become very blurred. Some technically non-profit CCRCs depend completely on services provided by for-profit companies.

June,

You are correct. From a resident's standpoint, there is very little difference between a not-for-profit and a for-profit CCRC

.

Talking with current residents is your best way to get information. Ask if residents serve as voting members on the board of governors. If so, how many? I recommend at least 3. Ask if residents can attend the Board meetings. Can residents speak to the Board if they are asked to do so before the meeting? Are executive sessions of the board held other than to discuss financial and personnel matters? Are these meetings announced in advance, and are actions approved by the Executive Committee made public the day following the meeting?

Jim Haynes

Thank you, Jim, my wife and I visited our CCRC a few months ago and had lunch with a resident couple, and they were very helpful. The man even mentioned a negative, about lack of information flow from Management. I had been worried that they would have been warned to "clam up" about complaints, but we didn't get that impression.

I have dug into the NC DOI website, and been collecting Disclosure Statements. "Our" CCRC should be posting a new one in a couple of weeks. Looking forward (or not?) to seeing if there is big pricing increases, although that notification might not be put out till closer to the end of the year. We are on a marketing mailing list, so that will come to us as soon as they publish it.

I downloaded and read through most of Naccra's "Financial Soundness Handbook for Residents and Prospective

Residents of CCRCs". And that is quite informative. If you are going to be a part of the editing process for a new edition, you could have them put in that Form 990's can be very easily gotten off of the propublica.org website.

In my internet "digging" today, I found a page from "our" CCRC that showed a "Board of Directors" that included 3 residents, out of the 12 total Directors. I am going to email our "new friends" (the couple we had lunch with) and ask them if they know and have had any conversations with any of the Directors who are residents.

Hi I live in the Raleigh area and my wife and I are on 4 waiting lists for CCRCs in the area. We took an Olli course last fall on Aging and CCRCs which had a number of guest speakers along with several CCRC visits. A wealth of information. We had a guest speaker in the course, Nancy Mayer, who is a local lawyer, who reviews CCRC legal issues-I believe she also reviews contracts. As far as financials, NC has a very strong insurance department which oversees CCRCs in the state and monitors financials annually. Each of the 63 (at last count..) CCRCs has to submit an annual report and I believe they all are in good standing. You can find a lot details on the ncdoi website. Other than that, I would interview the CFO after getting the report from the ncdoi website if so inclined.

Michael,

Another resource for determining financial soundness is a publication put out annually by CARF International: "Financial Ratios & Trends Analysis", available for purchase. I paid $165.68 including shipping & tax in 2017.

It provides a thorough explanation of the financial ratios that CARF uses as benchmark data for the CCRC field. With a CCRC's financial report in hand, you can calculate the ratios yourself. It also provides various graphics to show context and trends for each ratio.

Also tables of median ratios for all CCRCs covered by CARF, broken down by contract type, Fitch ratings, etc. (But no data on any individual CCRCs.)

Philippa Strahm

Thank you, Philippa. I looked it up and that book is now $146. But the numbers and graphs and tables given and described, are way over my head. I don't think I can understand and draw any conclusions from that depth of statistics.

Michael,

What I did was pretty simple, not requiring any financial expertise. After calculating the ratios with the simple formulas provided I compared them with the quartiles data on CCRCs in general, to see how the CCRC I was interested in stacked up.

For any particular ratio, the 75th quartile is always better than the 25th quartile.

To do that you don't have to get into the meanings of the ratios. Pretty crude, but better than nothing.

The main work is just hunting down the items in the financial report to plug into the formula.

Philippa Strahm

There is a CARF report on Financial Ratios under Documents> CARF that may be helpful.

Ann MacKay