About NCAL
National Center for Assisted Living
Your National Assisted Living Leader for Advocacy, Information, Education, and Professional Development
Become an NCAL Member
Joining is easy! Assisted Living and Residential Care Providers automatically become members of NCAL when they join their state affiliate association.
NCAL Overview and Benefits of Membership
The National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) is the assisted living voice of the American Health Care Association (AHCA). NCAL is dedicated to serving the needs of the assisted living community through national advocacy, education, networking, professional development, and quality initiatives. NCAL’s proactive, national focus on assisted living legislation is backed by the strongest and most influential long term care advocacy team in the country. NCAL members know that their voices will be heard by the national policymakers and regulators who continually seek to influence the future of assisted living.
In addition to national advocacy, NCAL supports state-specific advocacy effort through its national federation of state affiliates. NCAL state affiliates work to create local education, advocate on behalf of assisted living providers, and provide the direct, ongoing support their assisted living members need to improve quality and grow their businesses.
Benefits of Membership
In addition to the benefits offered by your state affiliate, NCAL provides members with:
- National Assisted Living Advocacy
- Access to Valuable Information Through NCAL’s Members Only Website
- Education, Networking Events, & Tools
- National Communications/Public Relations Efforts
- Professional Publications
- Quality Initiatives
National Assisted Living Advocacy
In recent years, assisted living has received increased attention at the federal level. Congress, the Department of Labor, the General Accounting Office, the Federal Trade Commission, the Institute of Medicine and the Department of Health and Human Services have examined various aspects of assisted living operations.
NCAL and AHCA work together to offer strong federal representation and have the largest, most influential long term care federal relations team in Washington, D.C. Both NCAL and AHCA are recognized as leading and trusted sources of information and opinions by policymakers and regulators.
- Strong relationships on Capitol Hill and in the Administration
- $1.5 million PAC
- Participation with the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association
- Participation with the Republican Attorneys General Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association
- NCAL State Regulatory Review: The nation’s only annual publication profiling each state’s assisted living regulatory requirements.
- Active leadership role in the Center for Excellence in Assisted Living.
Access to Valuable Information Through NCAL’s Members Only Website
As an NCAL member, you have unlimited access to the members-only pages of ncal.org. Resources available to you include:
- Accreditation Information
- Assisted Living Studies
- Assisted Living Work Group Reports
- Labor, Workforce, & OSHA Resources
- Legislative Updates
- Life Safety & Disaster Preparedness Information
- Assisted Living Media Coverage Information
- Medicaid/Finance Information
- Medicare Part D Information
- National Assisted Living Week Resources
- NCAL’s Guiding Principles:
- i. Guiding Principles for Assisted Living
- ii. NCAL’s Guiding Principles for Quality in Assisted Living
- iii. NCAL’s Guiding Principles for Providing Information to Consumers
- Practice Guidelines / Training Tools
- Publications
- State Regulatory Review
- NCAL’s Award Program information and Application
- NCAL’s Webinar Archive
- Front Line Staff Training Tool for Transitioning to Assisted Living
- And more…
Education, Networking Events, and Tools
Assisted living is dynamic and growing. NCAL offers outstanding educational, networking, and event opportunities that will keep providers up-to-date and on the cutting edge.
- Discounted Registration at the 59th Annual AHCA/NCAL Convention and Expo. Four days of valuable, results-oriented seminars and an opportunity to interface with hundreds of top vendors in the long-term care industry. Oct. 5-8, 2008, Nashville, TN.
- Discounted Registration at NCAL Day. This special day will take place on Sunday, October 5th, opening the 59th Annual AHCA/NCAL Convention and Expo. NCAL Day will focus on staff recruitment and retention, staff orientation, and professional development opportunities for staff at all levels. NCAL will also host a separate, concurrent NCAL Day educational track on October 5 featuring the challenging “Top Gun” leadership program. “Top Gun” is a four-hour session that leads teams of three people through the different phases of turning around a poor performing assisted living community.
- Webinars
- Regional Leadership Conferences
- In-Service Training Programs
- i. “Transitioning into Assisted Living”
- ii. “Turning Complaints into Compliments”
- iii. “The Power of Ethical Marketing”
- Substantial Members Discounts in NCAL’s Bookstore
- National Assisted Living Week®. An annual celebration, held each September, designed to raise awareness of the assisted living profession and to encourage community support. Each year, NCAL develops an original National Assisted Living Week® Planning Guide as well as a product catalog for its members. Both are designed to promote the quality of services in assisted living residences nationwide.
- A Consumer’s Guide to Assisted Living and Residential Care. Providing you with the tools you need to successfully reach out to your prospective customers is a priority of NCAL. This guide is designed to help consumers select an assisted living facility that’s right for them. It provides a description of services and includes a checklist and cost calculator.
National Communications / Public Relations Efforts
NCAL gets the word out. The public’s perception of assisted living affects all of your staff members and the environment in which providers operate. NCAL’s research, positions, and events are communicated to members and the public via:
- News releases
- Direct media mailings
- Media interviews
Professional Publications
Whether you prefer your professional updates in news summaries, in-depth reports, or timely e-mails, as an NCAL member you’ll enjoy the benefits of a variety of publications aimed at various aspects of the profession.
- NCAL’s FOCUS, a monthly newsletter, covers the latest business news, trends, regulatory activity and legislative developments and provides examples of some of the best practices in assisted living residences across the nation.
- ncal connections, NCAL’s e-newsletter, is dedicated to keeping members informed of developing events in assisted living and at NCAL. It is distributed to the association’s leadership, state affiliates, and associate business members.
- Capitol Connection, a long-term care electronic update from AHCA/NCAL.
- Provider is a solution-oriented monthly magazine that offers readers pragmatic, hands-on guidance regarding the entire long term care continuum, including extensive coverage of assisted living issues.
- The AHCA/NCAL Gazette is a daily publication designed to keep state association leaders informed of state and national news that affects long term care professionals so they can incorporate what’s happening nationwide into their decision making at the state level.
- AHCA Notes is a monthly newsletter that updates NCAL members on long term care trends as well as state and national regulatory and legislative activity.
Quality
NCAL believes in quality improvement programs and performance excellence for the assisted living profession. Performance objectives, data collection, benchmarking, measurement of resident and family satisfaction and workforce development are some of the components of a quality improvement program. These tools may be used by providers, residents, family members, and staff in providing quality services and care in assisted living communities. Quality initiatives undertaken include:
- NCAL’s Partnership with My InnerView. My InnerView is an evidence-based management tool designed for nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and housing with services providers. My InnerView provides two primary management tools to help organizations better achieve their goals:
- i. Satisfaction Surveys. My InnerView offers Family, Resident, and Employee Satisfaction Surveys for assisted living providers to help them base their actions on what they know about resident and family satisfaction, not what they think they know. This feedback is essential to fully represent the operational story of a facility. The survey tools provide evidence you need to initiate quality improvement, track referral sources, improve staff recruitment and retention, and measure outcomes of previous initiatives.
- ii. Quality Profile Tracking. The one-screen Quality Profile will track the monthly progress facilities make toward their own goals; revealing strengths and diagnosing stresses within the system. Tracking includes: resident quality of life, resident quality of care, family satisfaction, state survey results, employee commitment, and financial health. My InnerView allows you to benchmark your community against same-size facilities with the same type of ownership and geographic location.
- NCAL’s Guiding Principles Documents:
- i. Guiding Principles for Assisted Living
- ii. NCAL’s Guiding Principles for Quality in Assisted Living
- iii. NCAL’s Guiding Principles for Providing Information to Consumers.
Become a member and start receiving your NCAL benefits today. For membership information, please contact your state affiliate.
Joining is easy! Assisted Living and Residential Care Providers automatically become members of NCAL when they join their state affiliate association. For more information, contact your state affiliate association or Shane Osborne at sosborne@ncal.org or 202-898-2843.