Meal Plans and Levels of Care in Senior Living - Volanté Systems
The article from Volanté Systems explains how senior living communities tailor meal plans to different levels of care—independent living residents typically receive flexible dining options like monthly declining dollars or meal credits to encourage socialization and convenience, while their dietary needs are generally less specialized compared to higher care levels such as assisted living or skilled nursing.
Assisted living, independent living, skilled nursing, memory care, rehabilitation – there are many levels of care in the senior living industry. Communities must prioritize their dining experiences and meal plan offerings at every level of care to help themselves and their residents flourish.
But, how does each meal plan correspond to each specific level of care? What is assisted living? What types of meal plans do assisted living (AL) residents have and why? Here are some core expectations that surround meal plans and dining programs through each level of care.
What does an independent living meal plan look like?
Independent living is ideal for residents who want to live independently, while still having access to assistance, amenities, and services when needed. When a resident joins an independent living community, they are often offered various dining options with their unit package.
Common features include:
- Declining dollars to be used anywhere in the community, given monthly, resetting monthly. This provides the resident with money to spend on campus, encouraging them to socialize, make use of the local dining venues, and enjoy the environment.
- Meal credit programs that provide residents with a number of meals per day, week, or month, resetting monthly and promoting in-community dining and local socialization.
When a community provides a meal plan such as those mentioned above, once residents have depleted their dollars or credits, they are either required to pay with a credit card, cash, or other payment method—or are offered an inclining balance or room charge account. This allows for optimum convenience, as the resident can get billed out on their room charges in accordance with their billing period.
Nutritionally speaking, while independent living residents may have dietary restrictions that impact their dining habits, they don’t usually follow the pureed or highly specialized diets that accompany other levels of care. Dining technology such as POS can help track dietary restrictions (e.g., gluten free, dairy free, allergies), sending this information to kitchen staff as it would be at a traditional restaurant. This allows communities to effectively support independent living residents and their dietary needs without significant operational impact.
What does an assisted living meal plan look like?
Assisted living is a slightly elevated level of care, where residents require more support from staff. It is ideal for residents who might have difficulty with daily tasks at home, and still allows for community living but with a personalized level of care. The most common AL meal plans are all-inclusive with some restrictions, but there are variations. For example:
- 3 meals per day included, alcohol not included and guest meals must be charged to an inclining balance or room charge account
- All inclusive with no restrictions
- 3 meals per day from a specific dining area, other dining areas are charged to room charge or using alternate payment method
AL residents usually have more restrictive dietary needs, and dining technology often needs to include this as well. Assisted living residents usually have more customized diets to suit their needs, which is sent from POS equipment to kitchen printers or screens, including resident name and dietary restrictions to ensure each resident’s dining needs are being met.
What do meal plans look like for more elevated levels of care?
More elevated levels of care, such as memory care, rehabilitation, and skilled nursing, almost exclusively have every meal, beverage, and food item included in their monthly package. Because these residents are under closer supervision, with staff members directly helping with daily tasks including eating, including meals in their package makes the most sense.
The dining experience is always critical to a senior living community’s success. Whether the community supports independent living, assisted living, or all levels of care, ensuring that your dining team is equipped with the right tools to deliver a proper dining experience is critical—from meal plans to the technology to support them.
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