RCFE (Residential Care Facility for the Elderly) Part 2

RCFE Rant-2

RCFE (Residential Care Facility for the Elderly) Part 2

Whose business is it anyway?

There is a big flaw in the business as I see it. I have a strong bias against the government in a lot of things so if this offends you read more. Government is good in some cases, but in others it’s terrible. In the case of RCFEs (Residential Care Facility for the Elderly) in California it is on the terrible side. Others will see it differently and that’s fine.

Firstly, in my opinion with an RCFE (Residential Care Facility for the Elderly), especially a 6-bed or less, the rules, restrictions, and BS are so onerous and unfair that the business, and it is a business, not just a place to care for people, is essentially a business run for the State. You do all the work. They make all the rules. You follow all their rules. You pay all the penalties for not following or obeying all their rules.

The State controls almost all aspects of the Residential Care Facility for the Elderly business, including how much money you need to start it, how many people you can care for, force you to use their forms for documenting virtually everything, force you to get additional licenses if you have more than one location, even if it’s the same business, force time limits of as low as 24 hours to notify them of incidents, tell you how many employees you have to have (in some cases), tell you which rooms you can use for certain residents, specify what kind of locks you need on your doors (we were forced to pay $300 for a lock in our other facility and $80 for one at our home a few years before), force you to have an outside door in certain kinds of situations, and on and on and on. Note however that although one county may require certain things you need to do another county, or even LPA (Licensed Program Analyst) may not.

Why do I say this? The list directly above could be a page or two long with restrictions and specifications, inspections, etc. For a small Residential Care Facility for the Elderly you are restricted to a maximum of six people. This severely limits any potential income. We had a five bedroom house. There was one bedroom for a live-in caretaker, four bedrooms for residents. Each room could have had two beds like most semi-private rooms are, but no, only six are allowed. Those extra two beds we could not have could have paid for another caretaker and expenses. It could even make the difference between success and just getting by. But it’s not allowed.

The Residential Care Facility for the Elderly requirements you have to follow can eat up a nice portion of your time and reduce your income in many cases. Because of extreme competition in many areas one cannot charge enough to afford to pay help, follow all the many rules, and make a decent profit or even a profit in some cases. There are exceptions, of course. [...]