Understanding the Difference
What is the difference between a Skilled Nursing and Assisted Living License?
Both Skilled Nursing and Assisted Living are regulated by laws in the State of Missouri and Federally. While both offer levels of care for seniors, it is important to know which type of senior facility and license is best for you or your loved one.
Staffing requirements for each license are determined to provide a certain level of care for residents of a facility, but are also determined to meet the safety and evacuation needs during a fire. Most assisted living facilities require guests to be able to navigate to a pathway to safety, independently on their own. There are many times where this is adequate for a facility, but it is important to ask these questions and know how a facility of your choice is set up.
We are licensed for Skilled Nursing while still providing an assisted living environment. This allows us to provide the highest level of care but also tailoring around each individuals wishes and needs. This allows all of our guests to essentially “age in place”, which means that we are able to meet the same needs for our guests regardless of a guest condition change. We want our guests and families to know that we are setup to work around their needs, not the other way around.
Not only is Mari de Villa Family owned, but it is family operated too. We are all actively engaged on a daily basis with all of our guests, families and staff.
As a family owned and operated senior living facility, we believe that the senior care we provide is all-inclusive, and that guests should not receive unexpected bills in the mail. That’s why we have always prided ourselves on offering the highest level of senior living services and care, at transparent and competitive prices.
Since Mari De Villa opened in 1960, there have only been five facility wide increases and we do not hold annual or semi annual rate increase.
License Examples
For example, when it comes to staffing requirements, the state of Missouri allows Assisted Living to have “adequate staffing”. You will need to decide who has determined the adequate amount. For a skilled nursing facility, the requirement reads that during the day shift (7am to 3pm) there is to be 1 personnel for each 3-10 resident. At Mari de Villa for example, at a census of 120, our nursing staff alone on the day shift at 19. If you add in our entire staff for the day shift we would be 41, which exceeds even the most strict staff to resident ratio requirement by the state of Missouri.
*Mari de Villa is licensed for 224 skilled, however, because we have converted all of our rooms to private rooms, we are at capacity at 130 residents
You will also want to know what is covered and what is extra. Assisted Living facilities were designed to do just that, assist. So it should be understood that they do not always include everything and there will be additional charges for certain items and services. Mari de Villa has always had an all inclusive approach for all of our guests in our Skilled Nursing. Our guests will not find arbitrary charges for additional services such as care, meals, transportation, wireless internet, cable television, housekeeping and more.
