Families often hear "personal care home" and "assisted living" used as if they mean the same thing. What each term means depends on the state. In Pennsylvania, for example, they are two separate licenses. Georgia sets it up differently.
In Georgia, an assisted living community is a personal care home that serves 25 or more residents and holds an extra license to provide a higher level of care. Every assisted living community is a personal care home. Most personal care homes are smaller and hold the base license only.
Sorting out personal care home vs assisted living in Georgia comes down to what each license allows.
What a Personal Care Home Is in Georgia
Georgia defines a personal care home as any dwelling, run for profit or not, that provides or arranges housing, food service and at least one personal service for two or more adults who are not related to the owner or administrator. The Department of Community Health licenses these homes. A personal care home in Georgia can be a house-sized home with a handful of residents.
Personal services are the hands-on help of daily life. They include help with bathing, dressing, eating, toileting and moving from place to place. They also include help with, or supervision of, medications that residents take themselves.
That medication help has clear limits. Staff can bring the labeled container, read the label aloud, open it and place the dose in the resident's hand. They can apply topical medications and help with drops, inhalers, nasal sprays and patches. The medication rules for personal care homes leave the resident in charge of taking the dose.
Admission rules follow the same pattern. A personal care home may admit and keep residents who can walk or move on their own, including with a cane, walker or wheelchair, and who can get out in an emergency with little help. An aging-in-place exception lets up to three non-ambulatory residents stay. The home may not admit anyone who needs continuous medical or nursing care.
Nursing, medical or therapy care that a resident needs now and then comes from independent licensed providers. The resident or their family buys those services from outside providers. The home may help arrange them but does not provide them itself.
What an Assisted Living Community Is in Georgia
An assisted living community in Georgia is a personal care home serving 25 or more residents that the state has also licensed to provide "assisted living care." The state defines that care as four parts working together: personal services, medications given by a certified medication aide, assisted self-preservation, and limited nursing services.
Assisted self-preservation means staff help a resident reach safety in an emergency. Limited nursing services include assessing a person's physical, mental and emotional status, health maintenance activities, and nursing care that can be completed within seven days or on an intermittent basis.
Day to day, this changes the routine. A resident who can no longer manage their own pills can have them given. When residents cannot take their own medications, the community gives them according to physicians' orders, and it employs certified medication aides to do so. Certified aides can give insulin under protocol, run finger-stick blood glucose tests, and give inhaler, eye and ear medications. A licensed pharmacist reviews each resident's drug regimen every quarter.
A licensed nurse is also on site for a set number of hours each week. An RN or LPN must be on site at least 8 hours a week in a community with 1 to 30 residents, 16 hours for 31 to 60 residents, 24 hours for 61 to 90 residents, and 40 hours for more than 90.
Only a licensed assisted living community may say it offers assisted living care. A home that holds the base personal care license describes its services in other words.
Personal Care Home vs. Assisted Living: The Differences Side by Side
Georgia personal care home regulations and the assisted living rules sit in two chapters of the state code, so each license has its own standards. Here is how they line up:
- Size: A personal care home serves two or more residents. An assisted living community serves 25 or more.
- Medications: Personal care home staff help with or supervise medications residents take themselves. Assisted living staff give medications to residents who cannot or choose not to take them, and certified medication aides do the giving.
- Mobility and emergencies: A personal care home keeps residents who can walk or move on their own and get out with minimal help. An assisted living community serves residents who take an active part in transfers and can be helped to safety by staff.
- Nurse time on site: A personal care home gets nursing from outside licensed providers. An assisted living community has an RN or LPN on site 8 to 40 hours a week, depending on its size.
- Staffing minimums: A home licensed for fewer than 25 beds needs one awake direct care staff member per 15 residents by day and one per 25 overnight. Assisted living needs one per 15 by day and one per 20 overnight, with at least two direct care staff on site around the clock.
- When needs grow: A personal care home with a resident who needs continuous nursing care must arrange a move. An assisted living community must also require a move for continuous nursing care, or when a resident cannot walk and cannot be helped to safety in an emergency.
The two settings share a lot. Both provide help with daily activities, meals and staff on site around the clock. Neither provides continuous nursing care. Either one needs a separate state certificate to run a memory care unit, and a home without it may not advertise specialized dementia care.
Which Setting Fits Your Loved One?
The comparison becomes useful when you hold it up against your own parent. These four questions help:
- Do they only need reminders and a hand with pill bottles, or do their medications need to be given to them?
- Can they walk and move between chair and bed with little help?
- Do they want a small, house-sized home, or a larger community with more on site?
- How likely is it that their health will change over the next few years, and would that mean another move?
Counting daily activities gives another way to measure fit. Make a list of the activities your parent needs help with: bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, moving around and taking medications. A person who needs help with a few of these may find the right support in either setting. Needs that touch medications and mobility point toward the license that covers them.
Cost depends on the home and the level of care. A later post on assisted living costs in Georgia walks through what families can expect to pay.
How to Check a Georgia Home's License and Inspection History
A home's license tells you what it is allowed to do, so check it before you choose. Three steps cover most of it:
- Search GaMap2Care, the state's facility search tool, to verify a home's license type and read its inspection reports. The state conducts unannounced compliance inspections about every 11 to 15 months.
- Look at the report an assisted living community must post on site. If the community has a website, it must link to its inspection reports and plans of correction from the past 18 months on the main page.
- Bring questions on a tour: Which license do you hold? Who gives medications? How many nurse hours are on site each week? What happens if my parent's needs change?
If a concern comes up, the state's Personal Care Home Program takes questions about licensed homes. The Long-Term Care Ombudsman serves residents of personal care homes and assisted living communities. Ombudsmen investigate complaints, visit facilities routinely and give information about long-term care.
Woodland Ridge is one of Georgia's first assisted living communities and Georgia's first non-profit assisted living community, in Smyrna near Marietta and Vinings. Our assisted living services include 24-hour staffing, access to certified medication assistants, on-site medical care and therapies, personalized care plans and help with daily living.
Residents can reach care without leaving home. Legacy Healthcare Services keeps an office on site with physical, occupational and speech therapy, and our therapy and physician services bring a geriatrician, a dentist and an optometrist to the community.
We also offer memory care and short-term respite stays for families who need a break or a recovery period after a hospital stay.
The best way to see how a community fits your family is to walk through it. Choose Schedule a Visit on our Contact Us page, and a member of our team will be in touch within 24 hours.
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