# What assisted living services include in Georgia
You have three brochures on the kitchen counter. Every one says "personalized care." Every one has a photo of a smiling woman holding a teacup. Not one of them tells you what Mom would actually get on a Tuesday.
I know how tiring that is. You searched "assisted living services" because you want a plain list. What does the monthly fee buy? What costs extra? What is a Georgia community allowed to do for her? Let's go through it.
This is general information, not medical, legal, or financial advice. Her doctor knows her health. A community's own written agreement tells you its real terms.
The everyday help
Georgia's rules start with something called activities of daily living. The state's list is broader than you'd guess. It includes bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, eating, and brushing teeth. It also includes laundry, cleaning her own space, managing money, shopping, making phone calls, getting appointments, and leisure activities.
In practice, most communities build their services around that list:
Personal care. A hand with showers, dressing, and getting to the bathroom safely.
Meals. Dining room meals, so she's not skipping lunch or living on crackers.
Housekeeping and laundry. Her room cleaned and her clothes washed, so the house stops being a job she's losing.
Activities. Georgia requires an assisted living community to offer social activities every day, shaped around what residents actually enjoy.
Transportation. The written admission agreement must explain rides for shopping, recreation, rehabilitation, and medical appointments. The community can include rides in the basic fee or charge for them. Emergency transportation must be available at all times.
Watchful oversight. Someone notices when she doesn't come down to breakfast.
Within 14 days of move in, the community must write a care plan for her. It should say what help she gets, how often, her preferences, and who on staff is responsible. Ask to see it. Ask how often it is updated. The rule says at least once a year, and sooner if her needs change a lot.
Medication help, in plain words
This part trips up a lot of families. Georgia is specific here, which helps you.
If she can manage her own pills safely, she can keep and take them herself.
If she can manage them but wants a hand, staff can assist. That means bringing her the labeled bottle, reading the label, opening it, and putting the dose in her hand.
Under Georgia's current rules, if she can't manage them, or chooses not to, an assisted living community must give her medications according to her doctor's orders. That work has to be done, at a minimum, by a certified medication aide. The community must check that each aide is in good standing on the state registry. A pharmacist must review each resident's medications every quarter.
When you tour, ask these out loud: Who gives medications here? Are they certified medication aides? When did the pharmacist last review residents' medications?
Assisted living community or personal care home?
Georgia licenses these two differently, and the license on the wall matters more than the sign out front.
A personal care home is licensed under Georgia rule chapter 111-8-62. It provides housing, food service, and one or more personal services for two or more adults. Some serve as few as two residents and feel like a house.
An assisted living community is licensed under chapter 111-8-63. In Georgia it is defined as a personal care home serving 25 or more residents that is licensed to provide assisted living care. That care adds four things together: personal services, medications given by certified medication aides, help evacuating in an emergency, and limited nursing services.
Size alone does not make a place assisted living. The license does. Our guide to personal care home vs assisted living vs memory care in Georgia walks through each one side by side, including what memory care needs on top.
The limits on medical care
Assisted living is not a nursing home, and Georgia's rules say so.
The "limited nursing services" a community can offer are narrow. They include assessing a resident's condition to find the right level of care, certain health maintenance tasks, and nursing care that can be finished within seven days or given now and then.
At admission, a community must confirm that a new resident does not need continuous medical or nursing care. She must be able to take part in moving from place to place, like helping as she stands and transfers. A doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant must examine her within 30 days before she moves in.
If her needs grow past what the license allows, Georgia's rules require the community to re-evaluate her, refer her for other services, and, if she needs continuous nursing care or can't be safely evacuated, arrange a move. I know that's hard to read. But that rule is there to protect her, and you haven't failed her if it happens.
What it costs, and what costs extra
CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey puts Georgia's median for assisted living at $5,300 a month for a private one-bedroom, about $63,600 a year. Her bill could be higher or lower. Medicare generally does not pay for this kind of long-term care.
Georgia requires the admission agreement to list every fee: what the basic rate covers and what the community charges extra for. It must also state that residents get 30 days' written notice before personal services increases and 60 days' notice before room and board increases.
So ask for more than the monthly rate. Ask, "What is in the base rate, and what is on the extra list?" Medication help, extra bathing or dressing help, rides, and personal laundry are common places where the answer differs, AARP reports.
When you are ready to put numbers next to each other, our free cost calculator is a good place to start.
Your one next step
Pick the community you're most serious about. Ask them for two things before your next visit: a blank copy of the admission agreement and their full fee list.
Read them at your kitchen table, not in the lobby. Circle every service she needs today. Check whether each one is in the base rate or on the extra list. Now you're comparing what she'd really get. The teacup photos can go in the recycling.
You don't have to know everything to make a good choice. You need to know what she needs, and what this place is licensed and promising to give.
You shouldn't have to figure this out alone. If you'd like more letters like this one, join the Enjoy newsletter.
Sources
- Georgia Department of Community Health, Rules and Regulations for Assisted Living Communities, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 111-8-63: https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/111-8-63
- Georgia Department of Community Health, Rules and Regulations for Personal Care Homes, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 111-8-62: https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/111-8-62
- CareScout (Genworth), Cost of Care Survey 2025, Median Cost Data Tables: https://assets.carescout.com/x/8fcb50422f/282102.pdf
- Medicare.gov, Long-term care: https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/long-term-care
- AARP, Watch Out for Hidden Fees in Assisted Living Facilities, June 11, 2025: https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/unexpected-costs-assisted-living/