Affordable Senior Housing Option MEDCottage Makes Its Grand Debut, First Unit Placed

One of the latest innovations in affordable senior housing made its grand debut on Tuesday, May 22 when the first MEDCottage unit was placed in a Virginia family’s backyard.

“Today, as 78 million baby boomers prepare for their senior years—potentially straining nursing homes and government-funded healthcare programs—we’ve taken a significant step forward in redefining the role of family in healthcare,” said Ken Dupin, founder and CEO of N2Care, innovators of the MEDCottage. “The first placement with a family validates our vision—to develop an alternative model for healthcare.”

The MEDCottage is a mobile, prefabricated medical home that can be placed temporarily on someone’s property and used as a senior housing alternative. Nicknamed “granny pods,” N2Care touts its product as an affordable long-term care option. At about $85,000 per unit, it can be considerably less expensive than extended stays in skilled nursing facilities, which can range from $70,000 to $80,000 a year according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

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A Virginia couple who ordered a MEDCottage for the wife’s elderly parents became the first family in the country, reports the New York Times’ Old Age blog, to order (and get) what N2Care describes as a “state-of-the-art hospital room” featuring remote monitoring, among other technological advances.

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Photo credit: Molly Armistead of N2Care

The product promotes a family-managed care model, said Dupin, adding that he hopes more families will take the opportunity to help care for their loved ones when possible—especially now, following the economic recession.

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“We do not think that the MEDCottage is a replacement or in lieu of nursing homes,” Dupin has said in a previous interview with SHN. “There will forever be that need; this is just an alternative for that. It’s for the people that want to participate in family-managed care, [although] we think that most people will still need home health care of a similar service to supplement the responsibility.”

Written by Alyssa Gerace

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