Assisted Living Facilities in New Mexico

A Caregiver's Guide to Assisted Living Facilities in New Mexico

What they're called

Official name: Assisted Living Residences

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 (up to two persons) living units (from single rooms to multiroom apartments) with cooking facilities and separate bathroom for each unit
• All meals, usually in a common dining area
• Medication supervision and other health monitoring
• Assistance with administration of medications if written permission given by resident
• Periodic nursing services
• 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: $3,491.25 (higher for residents requiring memory care)

State of New Mexico requirements

• Facility must conduct and regularly update a baseline assessment of each resident's cognitive, vision, and communication/hearing patterns; physical functioning; continence; psychosocial well-being, mood, behavior, and activity pursuit patterns; disease diagnoses and other health and dental conditions; medication use; and required special treatment and procedures.
• Bathroom facilities may be shared.

State of New Mexico oversight

The New Mexico Department of Health, Health Facility Licensing and Certification Bureau (505-476-9025) licenses assisted living facilities.

How to resolve problems or offer feedback

• Contact the New Mexico long-term care ombudsman online or toll-free at the following numbers: Albuquerque, 866-842-9230; Las Cruces, 800-762-8690, or Santa Fe, 866-451-2901; this is a free service to help residents informally resolve problems with a facility.
• To register a complaint about a facility, contact New Mexico's Department of Health, Health Facility Licensing and Certification complaint office, either online or by phone toll-free at 800-445-6242.
• Rate and review assisted living facilities.

How to pay for assisted living in New Mexico

• Most assisted living is paid for privately by the resident and/or his or her family.
• For Medicaid-eligible low-income residents, New Mexico's Coordination of Long-Term Services (CoLTS) waiver program pays part of the monthly fees for personal care services provided in 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.