November 12, 2025

What to Consider When Choosing Senior Care: Assisted Living Edition

About Brookdale Senior Living

Brookdale Senior Living offers multiple care levels for seniors in more than 600 communities nationwide. Brookdale helps you find the right care plan for yourself or your loved one. With amenities such as transportation services, salons and private dining rooms and activities such as gardening, fitness classes and trivia nights Brookdale caters to a wide range of interests and needs.

What does the term “assisted living” mean to you? For hospital case managers and care managers, the term can mean different things depending on experience. As the landscape of post-acute care continues to evolve, this may be a good time to take a fresh look at how assisted living fits into care transitions and outcomes that matter most to your older adult patients.

Even within healthcare circles, assisted living is sometimes viewed through an outdated or incomplete lens. In reality, the most exceptional communities now play a dynamic role in supporting health, independence and quality of life for older adults. Yet a few persistent misconceptions continue to shape perceptions of assisted living — especially during care transitions. Here are some of the most common:

Many people see assisted living as just expensive housing, not part of healthcare.
Families tend to expect either hospital-level care or almost none at all.
In the eyes of many, value-based care doesn’t apply in private-pay senior living.

This blog post will address those misconceptions while demonstrating how the best assisted living communities effectively help residents manage chronic conditions and coordinate care, adding value and helping to improve outcomes. And it will explore ways that you can help provide guidance for your patients and their families during times of transition.

Effective Chronic Condition Management Is Proactive and Collaborative

Effective chronic condition management, a key component of assisted living, requires a proactive, team-based approach defined by:

Extensive collaboration. Physicians, case managers and care managers, nurses and families come together to help residents more effectively manage complex conditions like congestive heart failure, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
Reducing unnecessary hospital visits. Proactive assistance with and management of preventive health services, shared decision-making, medication reviews, and timely intervention help reduce ER visits and hospitalizations.
Family involvement. Families are involved and receive empathetic support throughout care transitions.
Value. A redefined model of value-based care can help improve chronic condition management, as well as care coordination. Here’s how:

Value-based care shifts the focus from volume (fee for service) to outcomes, aiming to help reduce costs and improve health through prevention, chronic condition management and monitoring changes in condition.
Providers can deliver value-based outcomes through proactive care, reduced hospital utilization and family-centered coordination.
By aligning with payers, clinicians and the resident’s support system, senior living communities can play a vital role in the value-based continuum.

In designing Brookdale’s approach to chronic condition management, we asked ourselves: If we built a brand-new community from the ground up, what clinical care delivery model would we want to have in place? How would we impact outcomes? And then how would we work with the right providers to produce that experience for our residents and their families? The answers to those questions formed the framework for everything we do.

At Brookdale, chronic condition management begins with knowing each resident: what they’re dealing with, what their chronic conditions are, and how we can help keep them out of the hospital and in their home. Our approach is focused on working with value-based care providers and supporting positive outcomes.

Care Coordination Requires Clear Communication

Effective care coordination helps make care transitions more seamless. This includes clear communication among all parties, including senior living referral services, in order to:

Set the correct expectations for your patient and their family. Many people don’t understand what an assisted living community is or what it offers. Some don’t know the difference between an assisted living community and a nursing home. Great communication is essential for families who, often suddenly and unexpectedly, find themselves seeking answers and assurance. At the time of discharge, care managers and case managers aim to help ensure that each patient and their family feel confident their ongoing support and service needs will be met.
Establish a high level of trust. Many older adults become acquainted with assisted living only during a crisis: an acute episode, a fall, a hospitalization. Trust is critical to ensuring a smooth transition. As a care manager or case manager, consider connecting with local senior living operators to help gain a clearer sense of the community’s services and culture. These conversations can help you, your patients and their families make more informed decisions about next steps in care.
Ensure that your patient gets placement in the environment that best meets their needs. The wrong placement can be a ticket for a quick return to the hospital. The right senior living environment will help provide care coordination to keep the individual healthy through the transition and well beyond.

Brookdale Dispels Misconceptions

At Brookdale, we want people to trust us with their parents and grandparents. That means overcoming misconceptions and demonstrating possibilities. A snapshot of our Brookdale HealthPlus^® communities quickly reveals some exciting truths about assisted living.

At its best, assisted living is far more than housing and hospitality. At Brookdale, we excel at community-based, proactive care coordination. Our goal is to help support residents through every stage of their healthcare journey — proactively addressing needs so they get the care they need as needs change with the goal to address those needs before a crisis occurs. We do this through collaboration with value-based care providers through an approach that many see as incompatible with a private-pay situation.

Each of our Brookdale HealthPlus^® communities engages a RN care manager whose purpose is to help manage clinical needs with the resident and their family. The goal is to keep residents healthy, in the community and out of the hospital. The RN care manager coordinates with the resident’s primary care physician, schedules appointments and does follow-up, filling in the gap among providers, the community, and the resident and their family.

Care coordination at Brookdale also means:

Collaborating with an array of parties: the provider (physician groups, nurse practitioners), the health plan (including Medicare Advantage payors) or other payors, and third-party services as needed.
Establishing solid working relationships with care managers and case managers. These relationships are built on:

Timely and open communication with honest feedback
Proactive problem solving
Mutual respect for everyone’s role
An unrelenting focus on the common goal: keeping the patient healthy

Focusing on prevention to avoid or reduce occurrences that send our residents to the emergency room.

Learn the Landscape

As a care manager or case manager, your strong understanding of the senior living communities in your area can make all the difference for your patients and their families. Reaching out to learn more, taking a tour or meeting with community representatives helps you stay current on available options and the quality of local partnerships. Which communities have built strong networks of local providers, community resources and trusted resources who can fill care gaps?

When possible, help patients and families anticipate the financial aspects of senior living, which is typically not covered by traditional insurance. Some states have Medicaid waiver programs offering varied coverage of long-term care services and supports (LTSS), and programs continue to evolve. At Brookdale, each community has team members who can walk patients and families through the financial considerations of assisted living and offer guidance for planning ahead. Starting these conversations early helps everyone feel more prepared and supported.

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