Understanding the Role of an Assisted Living Facility Administrator
Jul 08, 2024
Hello everyone, Brandon Gustafson here. Owning and operating two assisted living facilities has given me firsthand insight into the multifaceted role of a facility administrator. Today, I want to take you through a typical day for an administrator and the essential tasks they handle, which ensures our facilities run smoothly and efficiently.
Check out the video here:
The Work Environment
An assisted living administrator typically works in an environment that includes a dedicated office space within the facility. This space is crucial for storing sensitive documents and ensuring compliance with HIPAA laws. It's also a hub for "uninterrupted" work — although, as I've experienced, interruptions are a common occurrence due to the dynamic nature of the role!
Daily Responsibilities
The responsibilities of an administrator are diverse and involve direct interaction with nearly every aspect of facility operations. From hiring and maintaining staff to coordinating logistics like food service and activities, administrators ensure everything runs like clockwork. They also play a crucial role in budget planning and marketing the facility to the community.
Compliance and Culture
Beyond logistics and operations, administrators are deeply involved in maintaining compliance with state and federal regulations. They act as the liaison between the residents, their families, the staff, and the community. This includes managing conflicts, addressing complaints, and investigating incidents to ensure a harmonious living environment.
The Human Touch
Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of being an administrator is developing and nurturing the facility's culture. They ensure the environment is resident-centered, which involves interviewing potential new residents and ensuring they fit well with the existing community.
Show Your Appreciation
As an owner, it's crucial to recognize the immense burden shouldered by your administrators. They are pivotal in creating and maintaining a safe, engaging, and respectful environment for both residents and staff. To all you facility administrators out there, your work is invaluable, and your efforts do not go unnoticed.
Ready to Dive Deeper into Assisted Living Investment?
If you found this overview insightful and are considering venturing into assisted living investment, I encourage you to explore further. Download our Business Plan Checklist to ensure you're well-prepared for every aspect of your venture. This tool is designed to help you craft a robust business plan, a foundational step for any successful assisted living business.
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Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:01
[Music] hey everybody it's brandon gustafson i own and operate two assisted living facilities and i created this channel to help people like you learn the ins and outs of investing in assisted living welcome to assisted living investing in our last video we talked about the difference between an administrator and an operator and assisted living what those differences are and how they work and and you know kind of what you could expect in those different roles and today we're going to be getting into a
00:00:40
day in the life of an assisted living administrator what's it like to be an administrator what could you expect the ins and outs the the daily grind what is that like as a facility administrator in assisted living the first thing i wanted to talk about is the work environment what is it like you know where are you working what does that work environment look like now a lot of facilities are going to be there's going to be a dedicated office space for that facility administrator where that person can go and store
00:01:08
sensitive documents there's going to be a fax machine they'll be able to i in an ideal world work uninterrupted on a computer or or take phone calls or things like that i laugh when i say under uninterrupted because um you're always going to have people knocking on your door to come and ask you a question or uh you know need something and they've got to talk to you and it's urgent that happens all the time with facility administrators so something that you want to be aware of but
00:01:37
oftentimes you know that office space is going to be somewhere in the house so for those of you that are thinking of converting a house or you know you've got this idea that you want to build a house for it you want to make sure that you take that into consideration make sure that you have a dedicated space for that office there's going to be a state requirement around what that looks like how it can lock and things like that because you're going to be storing sensitive information it needs to
00:02:02
be up to hipaa laws and things like that as far as how you're going to store that data so you want to make sure that it is in a spot that is you know easily accessible but also has a barrier a way to to lock things down and you'll want to take that into consideration you're looking at a house and the space that is in the house you're going to need an office space for your facility administrator you know a facility administrator for for those that are in a smaller facility you're going to be working in a house
00:02:32
for a larger facility it's going to be you know one of those larger facilities that have it but you're going to be in there with the residents and the caregivers so you're going to need to be comfortable interacting with them you know interacting with the residents including some of those issues that might come up where you've got to help out with some of those activities of daily living that we've talked about toileting dressing bathing jumping in there there's going to be
00:02:54
mental health issues as people's mental health deteriorates over time as they get older you're going to be having to deal with some of those things so those are some of the things that you want to be aware of a facility administrator is going to be having to deal with on a daily basis so what are those daily responsibilities that a facility administrator has you know we've talked a little bit about taking care of those day-to-day operations at the facility i talked about that in my last video
00:03:22
but you know they're going to be hiring and maintaining staff they're going to be conducting meetings with department heads in a larger facility or just like general staff meetings in smaller facilities they're going to be planning a facility's budget and kind of what that looks like they'll be marketing the facility out into the community whether that's through facebook or you know on just various websites and things like that they're going to be the person doing the marketing or if it's a larger
00:03:50
facility they'll have a marketing department head that they they work with around that but they're kind of in charge of it they're going to be implementing policies and procedures and setting goals for the facility as far as occupancy and rates and safety and staffing and some of those things there's a lot of goal setting that goes into this type of position and that facility administrator is in charge of a lot of that they're going to be coordinating some of the logistical things such as
00:04:20
food for the residents and purchasing all that food and setting up a cooking schedule who's going to cook the food they'll be planning activities or overseeing what those activities look like if there's going to be transportation they're going to be coordinating transportation for the facilities they're just kind of in charge of handling all of that that work that goes on for the residents and for the staff and then they're also making sure that the facility is staying in
00:04:45
compliance with state regulations any federal regulations that come down they'll be coordinating with with the owner you know you as the owner they'll be coordinating with that person and those meetings and kind of managing those expectations um and and things like that that's kind of what the daily responsibilities are i would say no day is going to be the exact same for a facility administrator but those are some of the responsibilities that you would expect your facility administrator
00:05:13
to to be in charge of and to to go and you know just just work on those things and the third thing that facility administrator is going to do is they're going to be interacting with a lot of people they're going to be acting as a liaison between the residents their families the staff and the community there's a lot of conversations that go on there you're managing a lot of expectations and egos and and figuring out how that works um you know if a complaint comes up from a resident
00:05:41
you're you're dealing with those you're doing an investigation on on what happened and what that process is like there's a lot of just managing people and managing um everything that happens with all those people which which is a really big balancing act and is a lot of what that facility administrator is there for um you as the owner need to be very appreciative of the work that your administrator is doing there because they're kind of being a barrier for you um and not doing
00:06:10
that and for those of you that are you know going to be in that role like we talked about in our last video where you're the owner operator um and the administrator um thank you you're doing an incredible job and and you probably don't get to hear it enough but you are doing an awesome job so keep it up um it's it's not easy so so keep doing it um you're going you know that facility administrator is going to be engaging with residents and staff during facility walk-throughs and in smaller facilities
00:06:38
they're going to be working as a caregiver as needed to fill shifts and things like that especially in today's world where it's you know staffing is is difficult uh it's it's been kind of hard to to find staff and sometimes our our administrators have to cover some of those shifts and and that can be a lot um and we show a lot of appreciation to them for for their incredible work that they're doing they're going to be you know developing that desired culture at the facility you
00:07:06
as the owner might have an idea of what it is but that administrator is the one that is there on a daily basis and they're you know they're the ones developing it you as the owner need to communicate what kind of culture you want but they are the ones building that culture and when they're bringing in new residents they're the ones that are interviewing them and making sure that they're not going to clash with all the other residents or the staff or anything like that they're going to that administrator is
00:07:30
going to be ensuring a safe and engaging living environment for all the residents and working environment for the staff they want to make it so that everybody's happy um in you know where they're spending the bulk of their time and then they're also going to ensure that that facility is resident centered that it's meeting their needs and respecting their rights as a resident the facility administrator has just a huge burden they do so much work they are incredible people for the work
00:07:59
that they do and you want to make sure that you as the owner as the operator are are showing appreciation to them and for those of you that are also acting as an administrator just keep it up it can be hard i i get it but you're doing an awesome job so so keep it up in our next video we're going to be getting into the day in the life of an assisted living operator what's it like to be an operator we went through what it's like to be an administrator what could you expect as an operator as you're going through
00:08:31
your day and what are the types of responsibilities you're going to have to deal with get into that in our next video if you'd like to learn more about investing in assisted living make sure you visit me on assistedlivinginvesting.net i'd love to see you over there on the website i've got content i'm going to be setting up some consulting um calls and things like that have an option for you to do that and would love to see you over there on the website and then make sure you
00:08:51
follow me on all my other social media platforms and remember it it doesn't take a lot just a little bit keep going keep making that progress incremental step by step and you'll be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music] you
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