Short Term Senior Care — Which Option Fits Your Family
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Short term senior care is what it sounds like: help for a parent that has an end date on it. It can be an aide at the house for a few afternoons a week, a daytime program your parent comes home from at night, or a stay of a few days to a few weeks in an assisted living community. Families go looking for it in one of three situations. The person doing the caring needs time off, a parent is coming out of the hospital and is not steady enough to be home alone, or everyone wants to test a community before committing to a move.
If you have never had this conversation before, the hardest part is the vocabulary. Half a dozen names get used for overlapping things, and the word you say on the phone changes what gets offered to you. Here is what each one means, what a stay actually involves, and how to tell which one your family needs.
The words you will hear, and what each one means
| What you will hear | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Respite care | Short, planned care arranged to relieve the family caregiver. Florida's assisted living rule defines it as facility based supervision of an impaired adult for the purpose of relieving the primary caregiver |
| Short term stay, or temporary assisted living | The same thing in plain words. Your parent moves into a community for set dates and goes home at the end |
| Trial stay | A short stay taken on purpose to find out whether a community fits, before anyone signs anything permanent |
| Adult day program | Daytime supervision, meals, and activities at a center, with your parent home in the evening |
| Home care, or in home respite | An aide comes to the house for scheduled hours while you work, sleep, or leave |
| Skilled nursing rehab | Short term medical recovery with daily nursing and therapy, ordered by a doctor, usually after a hospital stay. Not the same category as anything above |
Notice that the first three rows describe one thing. If you call a community and ask about a short term stay, a temporary stay, a trial stay, or respite, you are asking the same question. Use whichever word comes out.
What a stay in a community actually involves
The picture most families carry around is a hospital room with a curtain. That is not it. A respite guest gets what a permanent resident gets:
- A furnished private room, ready to move into, so you are packing a suitcase and not a moving truck
- Three home cooked meals a day in the dining room
- Help with medications, bathing, dressing, and getting around, as much or as little as your parent needs
- The full activities calendar, the same one everyone else is on
- Assisted living or the secured memory care section, whichever matches what your parent needs
Arrival day looks like a hotel check in with a nurse attached. Someone walks the room with you, goes through the medication list bottle by bottle, and asks the questions that make the first night calm: when does your mother usually wake, what does she eat for breakfast, does she use a walker at night. The middle days are ordinary days. On the last day you pack the suitcase back up and drive home.
Pick by the shape of the gap, not by the name
Most families pick wrong the first time by choosing the option a friend used rather than the one that matches the hours they actually need covered. Run it against your own week instead.
You need a stay in a community when the gap includes nights. Travel, your own surgery, a work trip, a wedding out of state, or a stretch where you simply cannot be awake at three in the morning again. Overnight is the dividing line, because it is the one thing an adult day program and a few hours of home care cannot cover.
You need an adult day program when the gap is weekday daytime and someone is home at night. It is built for the caregiver who works days.
You need home care when your parent is settled at home, the gaps are a few hours at a time, and moving them anywhere would cost more in disruption than it buys you in relief.
You need skilled nursing rehab, not respite, when a doctor has ordered daily therapy after a hospital stay. Rehab is medical recovery under a physician's plan. A respite stay is not, and no community will pretend otherwise.
And you need a short stay in the secured memory care section when your parent has Alzheimer's or another dementia, cannot be left alone at all, and the break has to be real rather than a nap on the couch with one ear open.
Try it in a calm month, not a crisis month
The families who get the most out of a short stay are the ones who booked the first one when nothing was wrong. Everyone already knows the building, the staff already know your father takes his pills with applesauce, and the second stay is a phone call rather than a scramble. The Alzheimer's Association makes the same point in its guide to respite options.
Ask about a respite stay
What a short stay is not
Clearing away four wrong pictures saves a lot of worry:
It is not a nursing home admission. Assisted living and skilled nursing are separate licenses with separate purposes. A short stay in assisted living is a stay in assisted living.
It is not rehab. No doctor orders it, there is no therapy schedule, and no insurance company decides when it ends. You do.
It is not a commitment. The guest goes home on the date you set. Plenty of families use a stay to answer the question honestly and then keep their parent at home for another year, and that is a good outcome, not a failed one.
It is not a lighter version of assisted living. Florida keeps a respite guest under the same license and the same standards as everyone else in the building, which is exactly why the admission paperwork is the same too.
Who pays for what
Start by asking the community how a stay is arranged and billed for your situation, because the answer depends on the person, the dates, and what care is needed. Before you assume the whole thing falls to your family, make three other calls.
Medicare does not cover it. Medicare pays for short skilled care after a qualifying hospital stay and for medical services, but not for long term or custodial care, which is what assisted living is. The narrow exception sits inside the hospice benefit, which covers a short inpatient respite stay for someone already enrolled in hospice. Anything else you read about Medicare paying for assisted living is wrong.
The VA funds caregiver breaks, but usually not in assisted living. It delivers respite at home, through an adult day health program, or in a nursing home setting. Read the VA respite care page, then ask your VA caregiver support coordinator which of those three your parent qualifies for.
Florida funds caregiver breaks through the state's aging network. The Alzheimer's Disease Initiative funds respite for caregivers of adults diagnosed with a memory disorder, and Community Care for the Elderly lists respite among the services available to functionally impaired residents age 60 and over. Both run through the Area Agencies on Aging. There is a federal layer too: the National Family Caregiver Support Program sends money to states for exactly this, and respite is one of its five service categories.
For Citrus County, the Area Agency on Aging is Elder Options, which covers sixteen counties in north central Florida. Their helpline is (800) 262-2243, and the statewide Elder Helpline is (800) 963-5337. One call tells you what you qualify for, and it costs nothing to ask.
Arranging a short stay in Citrus County
Both of our communities take short stays, in assisted living or in the secured memory care section. Sugarmill Manor is at 8985 S Suncoast Blvd in Homosassa, phone (352) 382-2531. The Gardens is at 10845 W Gem St in Crystal River, phone (352) 794-7601. They are a short drive apart, which matters when you are choosing by which one your family can reach fastest during the stay.
Two things to do before you call. Check when your parent last saw a doctor, because Florida requires a recent health assessment for any move in, short or permanent, and that is the single most common reason a booking slips. And write down your actual dates, even rough ones, because availability is the thing the administrator can answer in a minute.
Our page on how our short stays are set up covers what a room includes. If the stay is really a trial run, treat it like one and bring the questions from our guide on what to watch for when you visit a community. A week of ordinary days will tell you more than any tour can.
Frequently asked questions
What is short term senior care?
Short term senior care is any help arranged for an older adult with an end date on it. It covers an aide at the house for scheduled hours, a daytime program a parent comes home from, and a stay of a few days to a few weeks in an assisted living community. Families use it to cover a caregiver break, a recovery period after a hospital stay, or a trial run before a permanent move.
What is the difference between respite care and a short term stay in assisted living?
There is no practical difference. Respite care is the industry term, and Florida's assisted living rule defines it as facility based supervision of an impaired adult arranged to relieve the primary caregiver. Short term stay, temporary assisted living, and trial stay all describe the same booking. Use whichever word comes out when you call.
Does Medicare pay for a short stay in assisted living?
No. Medicare pays for skilled care after a qualifying hospital stay and for medical services, but it does not cover long term or custodial care, which is what assisted living provides. The one narrow exception sits inside the hospice benefit, which covers a short inpatient respite stay for someone already enrolled in hospice.
Can my parent try assisted living before moving in permanently?
Yes. A short stay is the usual way to do it. Your parent sleeps in a real room, eats in the dining room, and joins the activities calendar for several days, which answers questions a scheduled visit cannot. If it does not fit, they go home on the date you set and nothing is committed.
What is the difference between a short stay in assisted living and rehab in a nursing home?
Rehab is medical recovery ordered by a doctor, with daily nursing and therapy, usually paid by Medicare after a qualifying hospital stay. A short stay in assisted living has no doctor's order and no therapy schedule. It provides a furnished room, meals, activities, and help with daily tasks such as medications, bathing, and getting around.
Who do I call to arrange a short stay in Citrus County?
Call Sugarmill Manor in Homosassa at (352) 382-2531 or The Gardens in Crystal River at (352) 794-7601, or send your dates through this site. Both offer short stays in assisted living or the secured memory care section. Have your rough dates ready, and check when your parent last saw a doctor, because Florida requires a recent health assessment for any move in.
Sources
- Florida Administrative Code, rule 59A-36.002, assisted living definitions
- Alzheimer's Association, respite care
- Medicare, long term care coverage
- VA Caregiver Support Program, respite care
- Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Community Care for the Elderly
- Administration for Community Living, National Family Caregiver Support Program
- Elder Options, Area Agency on Aging for north central Florida
- Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Alzheimer's Disease Initiative
Written by
Community Relations Director
Cameron Hernando Clark is the Community Relations Director for The Manors of Citrus. He writes this family guide to help Citrus County families make sense of assisted living and memory care, drawing on the day to day of running two family owned communities on Florida's Nature Coast.
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