If you or a senior loved one are looking for senior care or senior living in Florida, one of the best resources out there (other than Sunbound of course!) is to use the Florida state government website the Florida Health Finder. Along with providing a handy Facility/Provider Locator tool, which allows your to find senior living communities, nursing homes, and adult day care centers (to name just a few) by either facility type or location, the website also provides a host of additional resources include healthcare resources and educational materials, health care data, and information on healthcare technology. This website is an amazing resource regardless of where you are in your senior care search, providing  

The Florida Health Finder Website

The first step is to navigate to the Florida Health Finder website where you can find not only a link to the Facility Locator, but also all the additional healthcare related resources mentioned above. If you want to hop right to the Facility/Provider Locator, you can click the button on the homepage or follow the link here. Once you navigate to the Facility/Provider Locator, you’ll see two main search options: “Search by Facility Type/Location” and “Search by Proximity.”  

You can use these two options to search for senior care in Florida. Use the “Search by Facility Type/Location” button to look get lists of Florida health care facilities by type, such as adult day care, assisted living, or nursing homes. Use the “Search by Proximity” button to find facilities that are a selected distance from an address that you choose. While each option will provide you with access to the same great Florida health care facilities, these buttons allow you the ability to tailor your search to exactly what you are looking for.

Search by Proximity

Hitting the “Search by Proximity” button will bring you to the below screen, where you can find all the Florida health care communities that are within a set distance of your chosen address. The tool lets you choose a variety of distances, ranging from 1,000 feet from your chosen address to 100 miles from your chosen address. One cool feature of the tool to note is that you do not have to use a Florida address as your address for a proximity search, and can include addresses in neighboring Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. So even if you aren’t a Florida resident, but live in a neighboring state, you can still use the Florida Health Finder to find great Florida senior care facilities.

Another thing to note is that even when using the Search by Proximity feature, you will still be required to enter the type of senior care facility you are looking for. So even if you choose to look for senior care by proximity to your chosen location, you will still all the same great Florida senior care facilities as if you searched using the Search by Facility Type/Location button. 

For this reason you can think of these two buttons not as providing two different lists, but as providing two different ways to find the same amazing information. We suggest using the Search by Proximity function if it is particularly important for you to find a senior care facility close to a certain location, such as your home or workplace. 

Search by Facility Type/Location

If you hit the Search by Facility Type/Location button you will be brought to the below screen showing options for a more general search. If you are more interested in finding a senior care facility with specific characteristics apart from proximity to a certain location, such as the senior care provider’s license status, whether they are registered with Florida’s Medicaid agency the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), and whether the provider is for-profit or not-for-profit. 

The Search by Facility Type/Location is a great way not only to do generalized searches of Florida senior care providers, but also to look up information on specific communities. Search a community by its name and address can bring you right to the community’s page, explained in more detail below, if you wish to know more about a single community (or group of communities).  

Community Residential Home

You’ll notice that in both options - Search by Proximity and Search by Facility Type/Location, you will have the option to select that the tool show you all of the “Community Residential Homes” in the area. In Florida, a Community Residential Homes are meant to serve residents who are clients of the Department of Elderly Affairs, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, the Department of Juvenile Justice, or the Department of Children and Families or licensed by the Agency for Health Care Administration. These facilities provide a living environment for 7 to 14 unrelated residents who operate as the functional equivalent of a family, including such supervision and care by supportive staff as may be necessary to meet the physical, emotional, and social needs of the residents. 

Review your Results

Once you’ve decided on what you or your senior loved one is looking for, you can hit search and be brought to the list of communities that matched your search criteria. Your search will initially display all the results in alphabetical order by senior care facility name, but you have the option to filter by additional options such as type, address, phone number, and the number of licensed beds. A sample search for assisted living facilities is below. You also have the option to export the list to excel or to print it if you would like to save the list for future reference.

If you’d like to learn even more information about a particular senior care provider, simply click on the facilities name in the column to the left to be brought to the Provider Profile. On this page you can find a wealth of information about each community, including not only high level information like the community’s address or its number of licensed beds, but also more in depth information like the community’s Administrator, Financial Officer, or owner. You can also find information on this page related to any disciplinary actions or fines that have been levied against the facility, as well as important information like what their emergency power plan is should the senior care facility face a power outage.   

To learn more about how Sunbound can help make senior living more affordable for you or your loved one, send us an email at info@sunboundhomes.com or request more information on Sunbound. Sunbound is the best way to pay for senior living and is on a mission to make senior living affordable for everyone.