19th Annual Elder Law Institute in Pennsylvania Includes Trend Analysis in Senior Living

Last week, Lancaster Pennsylvania was host to the 19th Annual Elder Law Institute, co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute and the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Elder Law Section.  As the image of the two, fat volumes of course materials demonstrates, there was a lot of content for  participants to digest. More than 400 professionals attended,not counting walk-ins.  (And yes, the course materials will be available for purchase eventually, from the PBI catalog here.) 

I had the privilege of welcoming two new speakers to the Pennsylvania conference, Stephen J. Maag, J.D., Director of Residential Communities for LeadingAge and Brad C. Breeding, President of My LifeSite.  Both speakers addressed options available for senior living, and focused on trends affecting Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs), now also known as Life Plan Communities.

Steve noted that with close to 2,000 communities across the nation identifying under the CCRC or Life Plan label, a majority are "still" nonprofit, especially in so-called "Type A" operations, but that there is clearly a trend in the direction of change to "for profit" ownership or management. Communities are coping with what he termed "unprecedented" change on many fronts, including changing consumer demographics, the impact of health care reform, and use of technology that can affect or delay timing of decisions to move into a Life Plan Community.  

Brad outlined the development of his company as a site for comparative information for consumers considering CCRC or Life Plan communities.  The company has a data bank with detailed, comparative information on over 400 communities, offering consumers a fee-paid option of getting side-by-side statistics on contract options, pricing, services available and more.  But he also said that collecting the information is not easy, as some state regulators, including Pennsylvania, do not "share" information in a transparent way.   Remember Medicare.gov's Nursing Home Compare?  Brad's company is working to provide consumers with comparative information beyond that narrow focus on skilled nursing care.  One of the hot topics Brad identified is the extent to which consumers can use "long-term care insurance" in the CCRC setting, and we all discussed whether such insurance should be paying a pro-rata share of entrance fees, especially in Type A life-care contracts. 

My special thanks to Steve and Brad for traveling from D.C. and North Carolina, respectively, to share their knowledge and predictions.