Continuing Care Retirement Communities: A Background and Summary of Current Issues

Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) are presently becoming a more viable option for seekers of long-term care for the elderly. CCRCs have been recognized for their unique strategy of combining various levels of health care within one community setting, as well as their potential for providing cost-effective care. As the industry undergoes tremendous growth and as many CCRCs gradually lose their reputation for being "financial unstable", more elderly individuals are finding this long-term care option more attractive. However, because the costs of a community are most often too high, the majority of the elderly population are not able to afford them. This problem has drawn the attention of many both in and outside the industry who hope to discover how the benefits of a CCRC can be accessible to more of the elderly population. Most present research on CCRCs deals with defining a CCRC or describing its structure. This paper analyzes CCRCs in a somewhat broader sense by focusing not only on the internal workings of CCRCs, but by also looking at issues currently surrounding the industry, such as affordability, managed care and regulation. (40 PDF pages)