Assisted living: what it is and who it's for
Private apartments with staff on site for help with daily tasks like bathing, dressing and medications.
When it's the right level
Assisted living is generally the right place to look when the issue is hands-on help most days, without daily medical care. Care needs change, though, and many communities are licensed for more than one level — what happens when needs increase is the single best question to ask on any tour.
How it's licensed
This category is licensed by the state, which means inspection reports and substantiated violations are usually public records you can read before you tour. Every state names it its own way: Nevada calls it residential facility for groups and Oregon calls it assisted living.
Where you can browse them
Live coverage, each from that state's own licensing register: Nevada, 437; Oregon, 240. Everywhere else is on the coverage map.
What Medicaid pays for this license
This is what a state pays a provider, not a private-pay price, and the two are far apart — what care actually costs, and the hours where staying home costs the same. Rates are set state by state, so they are listed that way — one heading per state, each citing that state's own schedule, and nothing below a heading applies outside the state it names.
Nevada
If she qualifies financially, Nevada pays between $78 and $125 a day, depending on assessed care tier. Effective July 2026 (Nevada Medicaid — Provider Type 57, Waiver for the Frail Elderly in Adult Residential Care, reimbursement schedule).
Nevada pays for the care in a residential facility, not for the room. Provider Type 57's billing guide calls this augmented personal care and says it is “over and above the mandatory service provision required by regulation for the Residential Facilities for Groups” — so the figures above are what the waiver adds, and the resident still pays the facility for room and board out of her own income. The tier is set by her assessed plan of care, by a state case manager, not chosen by the family.
Oregon
If she qualifies financially, Oregon pays between $2,040 and $4,789 a month, depending on assessed service level, plus $773 a month room and board from her own income. Effective July 1, 2026 (Oregon ODHS, Aging and People with Disabilities — Medicaid rate schedule). A community holding the memory-care endorsement is paid $6,480 a month for that unit — the only authoritative memory-care figure published in Oregon, private-pay surveys included.
Of Oregon's 240 communities licensed for this level, 187 accept Medicaid — so for most families reading this these are the operative numbers.
Reading the capacity figure
The register publishes licensed capacity — how many residents the license permits — and nothing about how many places are free this week. Ask about openings on the first call: a community with nothing available for four months is not an option however good it looks.
Still deciding?
Here is where assisted living sits against the other five. The other levels are here: independent living, residential care, memory care, nursing homes, adult foster care.
No daily care
Hands-on help most days
Daily medical care
Memory care is a state certification added on top of a community's existing license, not a seventh box — how the six relate.