Assisted Living Facilities in New Jersey

A Consumer's Guide to Assisted Living Facilities in New Jersey

What they're called

Official name: Assisted Living Residences and Comprehensive Personal Care Homes

Common name: Assisted living facilities

To compare assisted living to board and care, skilled nursing, and other long-term residential care communities, see Residential Care Options: How to Decide.

What they offer

• Individual or shared (no more than two persons) living units (from single rooms to multiroom apartments), often with cooking facilities
• All meals, usually in a common dining area
• Monitoring of and assistance with medications; medications may be administered by certified staff under supervision/designation of a registered nurse
• Personal care services, including help with one or more activities of daily living (ADLs), such as eating, dressing, and bathing
• Social and exercise activities

Note: Some facilities also offer respite care and other special services.

What they cost

Median monthly fees: $4,937.50 (higher for residents requiring memory care)

State of New Jersey requirements

• Comprehensive Personal Care Homes are older, often formerly "board and care homes," that don't meet building specifications for newly constructed Assisted Living Residences but otherwise provide all the same facilities and services.
• A facility may engage the services of a licensed home healthcare agency.
• Individual bathroom required for each unit.

State of New Jersey oversight

The New Jersey state Department of Health and Senior Services (609-633-9034) licenses and regulates group residential facilities.

How to resolve problems or offer feedback

• Contact the New Jersey long-term care ombudsman online or by phone at 877-582-6995; this is a free service helping residents informally resolve problems with a facility.
• File a complaint online with the New Jersey division of Health Facilities Evaluation and Licensing or by phone at 800-792-9770.
• Rate and review assisted living facilities.

How to pay for assisted living in New Jersey

• Most assisted living is paid for privately by the resident and/or his or her family.
• For eligible low-income residents, New Jersey's Global Options for Long-Term Care program pays part of the cost of services provided by participating facilities.
• Low-income veterans or surviving spouses of veterans may be eligible for Aid and Attendance or other payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which can help pay for assisted living.
• Some assisted living facilities offer sliding scale fees, making a higher level of care available to families that might not otherwise be able to afford it. Be sure to ask -- or ask a geriatric care manager in the area if he or she knows which facilities offer sliding scale fees.

Help finding and choosing a facility

• Hire a geriatric care manager (most have extensive local knowledge about assisted living facilities in a particular geographic area, including space availability, resident needs assessments, sliding scale fees, and resident satisfaction). To find a geriatric care manager, see Caring.com's Senior Living Directory.
• For details about assisted living facilities in each of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, see A Caregiver's Guide to Assisted Living Facilities.