What’s Changed And What’s Stayed The Same
Recently, there has been change afloat at John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center. Change always comes with challenges and sometimes change can be misunderstood. We thought it would be helpful to summarize what has changed and what has not for our local community.
What’s The Same
For over 50 years, John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center has been a staple of the Higginsville community and surrounding areas. During that time we’ve care for thousands of people and helped them age successfully and on their terms. Nothing has changed about that. We will continue to serve the local community and help people with the challenges of aging, giving them the opportunity to age with dignity and respect. One of the components we offer at John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center that helps people plan for the aging process and make it easier with some advance planning is the Life Care nature of our community. That means that we provide independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation services enabling people to transition through different care settings should they need it as they age. Calling this environment home gives residents the peace of mind knowing they’ll be helped no matter the level of their health. They don’t have to worry about where they’ll go should their health decline. We continue to offer dining, social activities, maintenance-free living, housekeeping and the same services we’ve always offered that give folks the chance to concentrate on the activities they enjoy and leave those they don’t to us and our staff.
What’s Changed
While we continue to offer the same continuum of care services at John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center our contract offerings have changed. We are what’s known as a rental CCRC, meaning we offer rental/lease contracts with no entrance fee while still providing independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing options thereby allowing residents to age in place. The transition away from the entrance fee model is not a phenomenon only at John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center. Many retirement communities are moving away from entrance fee Life Care Contracts that give residents a discount on their future healthcare in exchange for an entrance fee. Changing demographics of residents is the primary reason for this nationwide change. When folks moved in around the age of 65 and planned on spending 20+ years on campus, the entrance fee model made sense to them. It also made sense to the organizations selling the contracts. As people are older when they move to retirement communities and spend less time on campus, the entrance fee contract is less appealing to consumers and businesses alike. However, we still provide people with the support necessary to extend their independence and delay the move to assisted living or the care center which provides a financial benefit as well. We continue to honor all contracts we’ve previously sold whether they are buy in contracts or no entrance fee contracts.
The other main change at John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center is that we’ve returned to a self-managed model. We are no longer partnering with a third-party management organization. Our community is managed by our administrator, Higginsville native Tiffany Goetz in conjunction with our local board of volunteer directors. This change enables us to make the best decisions for the community at the local level and frees up funds to secure the future of John Knox Village East & Meyer Care Center.
These changes should result in negligible impact to the residents, but set up our organization to continue to serve the Higginsville community and surrounding areas for years to come. Should you have further questions, call us at 660 584 7111 and ask to speak to the administrator, Tiffany Goetz.
