Top Priorities When Searching for Senior Care: Tips for Finding the Right Fit

Choosing the right senior living community is a major decision, and one that requires some careful thought to find a good match for you and your family. Whether you’re a senior exploring options for yourself or a family member helping a loved one find the right care, understanding what matters most to you plays a key role in finding the perfect match.

How to Identify Top Priorities for Senior Care

The first step in your search is recognizing a fundamental truth: everyone may have different priorities – and that’s perfectly okay! There’s no universal “best” senior living community, only the best one for your specific situation. What matters a lot to one person might be a lot less meaningful to someone else. 

Finding senior care isn’t a solitary decision, so it’s important to find some common ground and make informed decisions that feel right for everyone. Fortunately, there’s a practical exercise that you and your loved one can do to identify your top priorities – creating a list. Follow these steps to what matters most to you and your loved one: 

1. Independently create a priority list: Create a top-five list of your priorities and have your loved one do the same so that neither of you influence the other.
2. Compare and discuss: Share your lists and discuss similarities and differences. This step can help reveal potential concerns and expectations that the other person didn’t originally consider.
3. Create a master list: Combine your different perspectives into one master list with five to seven different priorities. This list can serve as a guide for finding the right fit for senior care.
4. Assign weight to each item: Not all priorities are equal. Rank each priority and consider assigning percentage weights to reflect their relative importance so that you can focus on the most important priorities first.

Key Priorities to Consider for Your Senior Care Search

There are a wide variety of factors that can impact your search, and it’s important to evaluate them to determine which ones are most critical for you. To help identify what matters most to you and your loved one, consider the following priority areas that may influence which senior care community is the right fit for your family.

• Financial considerations, such as monthly costs, available Medicaid options, and long-term financial sustainability.
• Care options, such as the types of care available, the availability of a continuum of care, and other related services.
• Location, including how close it is to family and distance to nearby amenities.
• Wellness initiatives, such as on-premises exercise facilities, chaplaincy services, and community events.
• Quality of staff and team, including asking about staff retention and longevity, training and certification, and accessibility to management. 
• Living space, such as room sizes (one bedroom, two bedrooms, etc.), ability to personalize living spaces, and other storage space.
• Dining experience, including the quality of food, meal schedule flexibility, and variety of menu options.
• Age and character of the community, including whether it has new facilities and modern amenities and a long track record of quality care.

The Rule of Three: Comparing Senior Care

Once you’ve established your master priority, it’s time to start your search. Start the process by visiting three different communities to gather enough information to judge each one based on your priority list and make a meaningful comparison. During this process, it’s important to remember that it’s not about finding the perfect community – it’s about finding the right one for your family’s needs. 

The goal is finding the one that excels in the areas that matter most to you and your loved one. As you go through your search, you’ll likely find that one community naturally rises to the top by meeting more of your most important needs. If you don’t feel completely comfortable by the end of this comparison, you can then visit others and compare them to your top community from your first list.

Take Your Time and Find the Community That Feels Most Like Home

By taking the time to thoughtfully identify and prioritize what matters most, you can make a potentially stressful process into a structured, manageable decision. The right senior care option is out there, and taking the time to clearly define your priorities helps you get your family on the right path to finding it.

Ready to start looking at senior living communities? National Church Residences has more than 300 housing communities in 25 states and offers several services to provide senior care at home. Find a community that’s close to you or give us a call at 844-465-6063 to talk to one of our friendly staff members today.

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