CCRCs Push Salaries Higher as Comeback Continues

Pay continues to rise for management-level employees at continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) around the nation, with an average annual increase of 2.70% between last year and this year.

That eclipses the 2.63% average increase for CCRC management positions between 2014 and 2015. The statistics come from the Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service’s annual Salary & Benefits Report, which is a joint effort with nonprofit provider association LeadingAge. The latest version of the report for CCRCs recently was released, and it includes responses from 536 CCRC/Life Plan communities.

Non-management positions (excluding clinical roles such as RNs and CNAs) also are seeing pay rates increase, although not quite as dramatically.

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The national average increase was 2.60% for these workers between 2015 and 2016. But that’s also higher than the 2.53% average increase between 2014 and 2015.

Excluding communities that had a zero-percent increase in the 2015 to 2016 period, the average increase for management positions rises to 2.86% and for non-management positions it ticks up to 2.71%.

As for the what the future holds, CCRCs are planning to increase pay for both groups of workers by about 2.60% in the next year. 

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After falling on tough times during the Great Recession, which severely compromised seniors’ ability to sell their homes and pay hefty entrance fees, CCRCs have mounted a comeback in recent years and salaries have risen during this rally.

Despite some potential threats, such as regulatory changes, CCRCs executives remain optimistic about the future and are feeling relatively secure about the state of the economy, according to a recent survey.

New Salary, Benefit Data

As for the salaries of specific positions, executive directors beat the average with a 2.97% increase, reaching $159,922. That’s among the same facilities that participated year-to-year in the survey, and is slightly lower than last year’s 3.01%.

Director of assisted living/personal care, meanwhile, was under the average, posting a 2.29% increase to reach $71,357 in salary. That also was lower than last year’s 2.69% average increase for this position.

For 20 positions, salary data was collected for the first time in the latest report. The new positions include fitness coordinator (average salary of $44,708) and transition care coordinator (average salary of $70,335). 

The inclusion of the new positions may also reflect the overall health of the CCRC sector, insofar as it suggests these communities are adding new types of staff members to support lifestyle and clinical services.

Some benefits data also appears for the first time in the newest report, including part-time employee health insurance statistics.

About 38% of CCRCs are offering health insurance to part-time employees, the report states. Part-time employees pay the same rate as full-time employees in about 52% of these CCRCs offering them health benefits, while in 48% of CCRCs they do not pay the same rate.

Written by Tim Mullaney

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