Improve Your Care Transition Messaging: Tips for IL/AL and AL/MC Communities

When a community offers multiple levels of care, it’s more than just a service line—it’s a powerful differentiator. But too often, this advantage gets buried in a bulleted list of offerings, which can lead to missed opportunities, especially around retention.

In fact, WelcomeHome’s 2024 Year in Review shows that level of care is the number one reason for move-outs in independent living and IL/AL communities. The good news? Communities that offer IL/AL or AL/MC are well-positioned to keep residents longer, provided families and referral sources understand how care transitions work and what they look like in real life.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how to:

Position your care continuum as a selling point—not an afterthought
Use website content, video, and email to tell powerful resident stories
Train your sales team to talk about care transitions with confidence
Strengthen integration between levels of care to reduce stigma and move-outs
Tackle the unique challenges of care transitions in Life Plan communities
Make sure your referral partners understand your care continuum, too

Let’s dive in.

Position your care continuum as a selling point, not an afterthought.

Too many communities talk about their care continuum like it’s a menu item (and that’s if they talk about it at all). But what people need to hear (whether they realize it or not) is how your community will support them or your loved one through change.

If you offer IL/AL or AL/MC, your value proposition is bigger than a list of services. You’re offering stability, dignity, and less disruption during a challenging time.

Develop messaging around . . .

Couples being able to stay close, even if their care paths diverge
Residents keeping the same address, friends, and routines
Adult children having one trusted point of contact, even as care needs shift
Residents avoiding a stressful move when they’re at their most vulnerable
Solo agers maintaining friendships and routines without interruption

When you highlight the human side of care transitions, you’re not just describing your services—you’re showing people how you do it, which helps build trust.

Use website content, video, and email to tell powerful resident stories.

Even after someone moves into senior living, they can still have plenty of worries: What if I need more care? What if my husband develops dementia, but I remain healthy? How will I care for him? What happens if mom keeps falling and independent living is no longer the best fit, even though she loves the community?

If your community offers multiple levels of care, you can ease those fears. One of the best ways to do that is to highlight real resident/family stories and distribute those stories across all channels.

Real-life examples and testimonials bring concepts to life:

A couple who still shares breakfast every morning, even though they live on different parts of the campus
A resident who continues attending art class each week, even after moving into memory care
An adult child who says, “Knowing that mom didn’t have to leave and start over somewhere new gave us all peace of mind.”

Share these stories consistently across channels to reinforce the benefits of your care continuum.

Here are a few ideas:

On your website: Create a dedicated landing page about care transitions with video clips, resident quotes, and family testimonials. Include photos of shared spaces and explain how couples stay connected, even when their care needs diverge.
In your videos: Keep things real and emotionally resonant. Show spontaneous moments like shared meals, resident volunteers helping in memory care, or couples enjoying “date night” in the community bistro.
In email nurturing: Use short vignettes from residents or family members as part of your lead nurturing strategy. For example, share a story about how a daughter toured multiple communities, but chose yours because her parents could age in place together, even if their needs changed.

When done well, these stories do more than inform. They build trust by showing future residents and their families that your community isn’t just a place to start. It’s a place to stay.

Train your sales team to talk about care transitions with confidence.

Sales teams often hesitate to bring up assisted living or memory care during tours for independent living, especially if the prospect seems wary of the next step. But this hesitation can unintentionally create confusion or even erode trust.

If your community offers a full continuum of care, you owe it to prospects to talk about it early and frame it as a strength.

Examples of how to position care transitions as a positive part of the experience:

“You’ll have peace of mind knowing you won’t need to move if your needs change.”
“This is a community that grows with you.”
“We’ve had couples live in different levels of care and still enjoy breakfast together every day.”

Encourage your sales team to include questions about care transitions in their discovery process:

“Is staying close to your spouse important if one of you needs additional support?”
“Have you thought about what the next few years might look like and what kind of support you might want?”

When your sales team learns how to talk about care transitions with empathy and confidence, you build trust from the very first conversation.

Strengthen integration between levels of care to reduce stigma and move-outs.

We’ve heard from communities where independent residents chose to move out, even though the campus offered assisted living and memory care. This can happen for a couple of reasons:

The person is unaware that they can transition to a different level of care.
The person is vaguely aware of options, but not keen on any of them.

Regarding the second point, a resident might see another person in the community go “over there” (to another part of the campus) and seemingly disappear. Their sudden absence can foster the perception that transitioning to a higher level of care entails losing one’s identity and community. (This issue came up in Netflix’s “Man on the Inside,” which we’ve talked about before.)

What can you do? Take a cue from Northbridge Senior Living, where community integration is built into the operational model.

Every apartment is licensed for assisted living, which means residents don’t have to relocate when they need additional support. Care is provided discreetly in their current space—no disruptive moves, no loss of independence, no visual divide between “care” and “no care.”
Staff from the memory care neighborhood regularly bring residents to community-wide events, while IL and AL residents volunteer in memory care programs like baking and art.
Programming and dining options are consistent across all care levels, helping residents maintain a sense of familiarity and belonging, no matter where they are on their journey.

When care transitions are handled with this level of intentionality, residents feel seen, supported, and included. And that’s what keeps them and their families connected to your community for the long haul.

Tackle the unique challenges of care transitions in life plan communities.

Care transitions in life plan communities come with their own set of complications. Yes, the promise of lifetime care is baked into the contract, but that doesn’t mean transitions happen smoothly or without resistance.

Many residents want to remain in independent living for as long as possible, even when their care needs increase. Some hire private or live-in caregivers to avoid moving, which can shift the community dynamic and create friction, especially for newer, younger residents entering IL.

Surprisingly, many life plan contracts fail to clearly define when a transition should occur. That ambiguity can lead to confusion, delays, and frustration on all sides.

The fix? Strong communication and collaboration with residents and families, paired with clear, proactive guidelines about when transitions occur. When everyone understands the “when” and the “why,” the resistance often fades and so does the tension.

Make sure your professional referral partners understand your care continuum, too.

Professional referral sources—like geriatric care managers, doctors, and leaders of community organizations—can play a major role in influencing decisions, which is why they must understand your full range of care options.

When you meet with referral sources, go beyond the basics. Highlight the levels of care you offer, and explain what that means in practical terms. Use language they can repeat easily, like: “Couples stay together through transitions—no second move required,” or “Residents remain integrated thanks to shared dining and programming.“
Keep them stocked with relevant marketing materials. Make sure they have updated brochures, flyers, or one-sheets that clearly explain your care continuum and why it matters.
Follow up with them post-referral. When someone they referred moves in, take a moment to say thank you. Or even better, send a quick update. This can be automated through your CRM, but a thoughtful check-in (especially with a resident success story) goes a long way in building trust and long-term loyalty.

Make your continuum of care a competitive advantage.

A strong care continuum becomes a differentiator when you talk about it clearly, consistently, and across every touchpoint. Need help getting the message just right? Let’s talk. Messaging strategy is one of our specialties.