What is a Residential Care Apartment Complex?

Residential Care Apartment Complexes (RCACs) are the newest form of housing available to seniors in Wisconsin designed to provide another choice for long-term care. All facilities are required to provide apartments with a kitchen, living area, bedroom and bathroom. In addition, RCACs must be equipped to provide up to 28 hours per week of services designed to meet individual tenants' needs. These types of services may include (but are not limited to) help with bathing, dressing and grooming, nursing services such as medication set-up and monitoring, and help with laundry and housekeeping. This provision allows consumers to purchase the service they want, with the flexibility to increase services as their care needs increase in the future.

How do RCACs differ from Nursing Homes and Assisted Living?

States are responsible for regulating long-term care facilities. While the commonly accepted or generic term for facilities other than nursing homes is "assisted living," different states have chosen a variety of names. In Wisconsin there are really three different kinds of assisted living facilities. These are (1) RCACs; (2) Community Based Residential Facilities (CBRFs); and (3) Adult Family Homes. Different regulations apply to each.

A CBRF is generally a facility where individuals have either a separate or shared bedroom, but definitely share common living spaces such as the living room, dining room and kitchen. They may share bathrooms as well. CBRFs are very well-regulated and monitored by the State of Wisconsin. For example, CBRFs are required to do background checks on their employees before hiring them. Their staff must undergo certain types of training for specific numbers of hours on topics such as first aid, fire safety, medication administration, caring for the elderly and other areas. The state inspects all CBRFs when they first apply for a license and then at least once every subsequent year. The state also sends out someone to investigate if anyone files a complaint about care or services in the CBRF. CBRF checklist.

CBRF CLASS DEFINITIONS

CLASS A AMBULATORY (AA): a class A ambulatory CBRF may serve only residents who are ambulatory and are mentally and physically capable of responding to an elctronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without any help or physical prompting.

CLASS A SEMIAMBULATORY (AS): a class A semiambulatory CBRF may serve only residents who are ambulatory or semiambulatory and are mentally and physically capable of responding to an electronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without any help or verbal or physical prompting.

CLASS A NONAMBULATORY (ANA): a class A nonambulatory CBRF may serve residents who are ambulatory, semiambulatory or nonambulatory but only if they are mentally and physically capable of responding to an electronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without any help or verbal or physical prompting.

CLASS C AMBULATORY (CA): a class C ambulatory CBRF may serve only residents who are ambulatory but one or more of whom are not mentally capable of responding to an electronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without any help or verbal or physical prompting.

CLASS C SEMIAMBULATORY (CS): aClass C semiambulatory CBRF may serve only residents who are ambulatory or semiambulatory but one or more of whom are not physically or mentally capable of responding to an electronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without help or verbal or physical prompting.

CLASS C NONAMBULATORY (CNA): a class C nonambulatory CBRF may serve residents who are ambulatory, semiambulatory or nonambulatory but one or more of whom are not physically or mentally capable of responding to an electronic fire alarm and exiting the facility without help or verbal or physical prompting.

An Adult Family Home is much like a CBRF. The main difference is that Adult Family Homes are licensed for five or less tenants.

Nursing Homes and Therapy and Rehabilitation Centers offer 24-hour a day nursing care. Rooms are either single or shared, as are bathrooms. All other space (living and dining particularly) are shared common space.

Nursing Homes have strong state and federal regulations. There are extensive regulations addressing issues such as staff qualifications, staff training, tenant activities, nursing care, food service, fire codes, and physical specifications. A team of surveyors inspects nursing homes at least annually and also visits a nursing home any time a complaint is filed.

In contrast to all the above facilities, RCACs have separate apartment units. Each must have separate kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living space. There are fewer requirements for staff training for RCACs, no required annual inspections and no requirement that the state send out an investigator when the state receives a complaint.

In the following two charts the 'information shown' is not meant to include all resources that exist at any one time in every category within Winnebago County.