Creating a Competitive Edge by Offering Ancillary Services

Does your senior living community have a hair salon, gym, or home health care services?

How about rehab or transportation services?

If any of these services seem outlandish or unnecessary, you may want to rethink your business strategy.

These days, it’s not enough for senior living communities to simply provide quality care. The promise of excellent care will certainly help attract some residents — but it won’t necessarily help an older community stand out from the new competition that just moved in down the street, or provide an opportunity to invite the general public to take a tour of your community.

Take it from Robert Kramer, founder and CEO of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care: “When you have [ancillary services], it also offers an opportunity to go beyond your four walls into the community.”

Kramer and other well-known senior living industry names — Gardant President and CEO Rod Burkett, soon-to-be HC-One CEO Justin Hutchens, Frontier Management President and CEO Greg Roderick, among others — shared their thoughts on the challenges and promises of ancillary services in a new eBook published by Senior Housing News in collaboration with PointClickCare.

There seems to be universal agreement that ancillary services, like home health care, can enhance senior living providers’ bottom lines — whether they increase current residents’ length of stay or attract new residents who are interested in a more unique living situation than they’d expect from a run-of-the-mill senior living community.

For instance, CovenantCare at Home, the home health care arm of Skokie, Illinois-based Covenant Retirement Communities, is “a great service, it’s a great revenue generator or at least brings some diversity to [Covenant’s] revenue,” their CEO Terri Cunliffe says.

And, with the right technology, senior living providers can determine exactly how their different ancillary services are benefitting their residents — as well as impacting their bottom line.

To learn more about how ancillary services benefit your senior living communities, and to hear different experiences from tried-and-true senior living executives, check out the Leadership Series Executive Highlights: Ancillary Services e-book.

Read More: Why the Smallest Details Have the Biggest Impact on Senior Living