Assisted Living in Georgia

Assisted living communities offer residents support with their daily personal care tasks, or activities of daily living (ADLs), and medication administration. In Georgia, assisted living communities might care for more than 25 residents at a time. Smaller communities with fewer residents are referred to as personal care homes.

The median monthly cost of assisted living in Georgia is roughly $4,000, which adds up to $48,000 per year.^[01] Assisted living is more expensive than independent living in Georgia, but less expensive than a memory care community.

The median monthly cost of assisted living in Georgia can range from approximately $2,600 to $5,900. This range reflects care and amenities as well as the cost of room and board across A Place for Mom’s partner communities. The national median cost of assisted living is just slightly over $4,800 per month.^[01]

While many communities cost less than the national average, those closer to a large city, like Atlanta, are likely to be more expensive. Several communities across Georgia offer additional luxury services, like wine tasting, educational speakers, and errand services, all of which can increase the monthly cost.

Several other factors can affect the cost of assisted living, including the following:

• Level of care
• Room size and layout
• Admission fees
• Monthly medication fee
• Pet fees

To reduce the cost of assisted living, some seniors use Medicare or Medicaid to pay for the medically necessary portion of their care services. Check with your prospective community to see if they can provide care services through Medicaid or skilled nursing services through Medicare.

Seniors and their families will likely rely on several payment methods to cover their assisted living costs. Personal income is one of the most common ways seniors and their families fund assisted living, and this may include retirement income like Social Security benefits.

Georgia doesn’t tax Social Security benefits, meaning your loved one’s dollar might go a little further.^[02] Georgia also provides seniors with a deduction of up to $65,000 on any retirement income.^[03] Private payment isn’t the only option for Georgia’s seniors, however. Your loved one may qualify for veterans benefits or other public assistance options.

It’s important to remember that planning ahead for these expenses can help your loved one tremendously. Some public assistance options have long waiting periods before benefits may apply. For more information on how to fund your loved one’s assisted living costs, consult our guide to paying for long-term care.

In Georgia, assisted living communities must be licensed through the Georgia Department of Community Health, Healthcare Facility Regulation Division (HFRD). Requirements for assisted living communities are similar to personal care homes. The biggest difference between the two is in the number of seniors a community serves. Assisted living communities care for 25 or more seniors. Memory care may be offered in an assisted living community, however, those communities require additional licensing.^[04]

Once licensed, assisted living communities are inspected every 16 months. If a complaint is filed against a community, the Healthcare Facility Regulation Division provides a 10 day notice of an upcoming inspection, and the community must come up with a plan to address the complaint.

Georgia’s requirements for assisted living communities include the following:^[04]

• Communities must assume 24-hour responsibility for residents, including protective care and watchful oversight.
• Communities must provide medication administration from a certified medication aide.
• Communities must complete a care assessment for new residents. New residents must be capable of independently moving from place to place.
• Communities should maintain a staff to resident ratio of one to 15 during waking hours and one to 20 during non-waking hours.

Ranking Georgia’s system of regulation and records

We developed a system to rate each state on how easy — or difficult — it is to find important assisted living records and reports, and compiled tips to help you in your search.

States with the most transparent records allow you to look up important information about each assisted living facility online, including inspections, complaints, survey results, violations, capacity, and whether the facility accepts Medicaid.

Access to Georgia assisted living records: High

Public access to assisted living records and reports for the state of Georgia is high. Key findings that informed this rating include:

• Georgia’s state directory has recently been updated and overhauled. The directory includes an interactive map. Also, an Open Records request is no longer necessary for assisted living or personal care home inspection reports.

How to look up Georgia assisted living licenses and records

For more information on assisted living communities, licenses, and records, visit Georgia’s site, GaMap2Care.

How we arrived at our Georgia rating

We developed a standard rating methodology for state data collection and evaluation. We based our rating primarily on the objective, state-specific accessibility criteria outlined in these questions:

1. Are licensed assisted living communities listed online in any form? Yes
2. If Yes to #1, is the information updated frequently? Yes
3. If Yes to #1, is the list of licensed communities searchable? Yes
4. Does the state post inspections, complaints, survey results, or violations online? Yes
5. If Yes to #4, is the information updated frequently? [within 90 days] Yes
6. If Yes to #2 and #4, is the enforcement information included in the same place as licensed communities? No
7. If Yes to #4 and No to #6, are violations / inspections searchable at all? Yes or N/A
8. Is information about special licensing for care shown? Yes
9. Capacity shown? Yes
10. Payment types shown, [e.g. Medicaid, private pay]? No
11. Administrator / Contact name shown? Yes
12. State may fine facility? Yes
13. Frequency of inspections? Every 16 months

Website includes pricing of facility? No