Learn About Virginia’s Assisted Living Rules and Regulations
Return to or visit our Virginia Assisted Living section.
The State of Virginia has put a lot of thought and effort into creating a set of rules and regulations that govern and guide the operation of Assisted Living Facilities and Residential Care Homes in Virginia.
We’ll cover where you need to go to find, and get a copy of these regulations as well as who is in charge of regulating assisted living in Virginia.
Who is the State Agency in charge of Regulating Assisted Living in Virginia?
This title belongs to the State’s Department of Social Services and their Division of Licensing Programs.
Their website offers a handful of informative pages that will help to guide you to understanding assisted living in Virginia. It is important to understand that each state in the US is regulated differently when it comes to assisted living, and each state defines assisted living in their own unique way.
First, within the Department of Social Services Assisted Living Facilities (ALF) section, there is an “About ALF” sub-section which covers the unique definition of assisted living in Virginia:
Next, we get into the Regulations, Rules, Application Process and Procedures for Assisted Living in Virginia.
There is a sub-section for Regulations, Technical Assistance and Code References which provides a number of .PDF documents relevant to various areas of licensing and regulations for ALFs in Virginia.
The next section is for New Assisted Living Facility Applicants, which provides links to additional PDFs that cover the Application Process and Licensure for assisted living in Virginia.
Next, you’ll see Guidances and Procedures, which covers more specific regulatory areas such as Blood Glucose Monitoring, Staffing, Training, Risk Assessment and more.
The regulations set forth by the State of Virginia are comprehensive and complex – moreso than most other states. To cover them in-depth here would be outside the scope and intent of this post.
Our goal here has been to introduce you to where you can find Virginia’s assisted living regulations and codes, and which department you can go to to ask questions or to seek assistance.
These regulations are useful not only to owners, administrators and staff of assisted living communities, but also to the residents, families and even to those who might be considering opening an assisted living home in the State of Virginia.
Lastly, I’d like to highlight a great way to search for assisted living in Virginia, which is also offered through the State’s Department of Social Services.
You’ll need to go to their ‘search for assisted living‘ tool which is fairly straightforward. You can search by:
- Non Ambulatory
- Special Care Unit
- Assisted Living Care
Simply select the City under the location field, and then your ‘special services’ choice, and your facility list will come up.
At this time, I found a total of 478 Assisted Living Care Facilities statewide in Virginia.
Selecting a facility will bring up more (and very useful) details about the facility. You’ll learn the facility’s capacity, inspections dates and details, whether they were complaint related, and how to contact the facility directly.
