Assisted living in Pennsylvania

We don’t publish this state’s inspection record yet — so nothing below is ranked by it.

Assisted living is licensed by the state, not Medicare, and Pennsylvania Dept. of Human Services doesn’t release its inspection and complaint records as a bulk file we can ingest. Several states in this position still let you look up one community at a time on their own site — so the record may well exist; we just don’t have it. We will not invent one: no community below is marked clean, because we have nothing to clear it with. To check a specific community, ask Pennsylvania DHS ↗ for its inspection and complaint history, or call your Long-Term Care Ombudsman ↗ — a free, independent advocate.

What Pennsylvania licenses — and why this total isn’t comparable to another state’s

There is no national definition of “assisted living.” Each state decides what it licenses and what to call it, so a state total counts whatever that state chose to license — state counts on this site are not comparable to each other, and a bigger number does not mean more assisted living. Here that total is:

• 995 PCH
• 63 Assisted living residence

25 of these (2%) are licensed for 6 beds or fewer — residential homes rather than the apartment-style communities most families picture. They are real licensed care and we list them, but filter by beds if that is not what you are looking for.

Memory care isn’t marked here — because the state doesn’t publish it.

Pennsylvania Dept. of Human Services’s licensing file carries no memory-care or dementia-unit designation, so we cannot tell you which of these communities has one. There certainly are memory-care communities in this state — we just have no authoritative list of them, and we won’t guess from a community’s name. Ask any community directly whether it runs a secured dementia unit, and ask your Long-Term Care Ombudsman ↗ which local communities take dementia residents.

Estimated cost range · regional

In Pennsylvania, assisted living typically runs about $5,200–$7,800/month.

This is a regional estimate modeled from published survey data (the CareScout/Genworth state median, ±20%) — not this community’s actual price, which it sets privately. Ask the community for its current all-in monthly rate and what each care level adds.

Paying with Medicaid

Pennsylvania Medicaid helps pay for assisted living only in limited circumstances — through a waiver, and not everywhere in the state or for everyone who qualifies.

The Pennsylvania waiver that can pay for it:

• Community HealthChoices (CHC) — covers in-home personal care / adult day / home modifications / assisted living services

In Pennsylvania: apply or check eligibility ↗ or call 1-866-550-4355.

A waiver pays for care, not for rent. Even where the state covers assisted-living services, room and board is still the resident’s to pay. Full eligibility limits — income, assets, the look-back — are on our Pennsylvania Medicaid page.

One community below is listed under the name on the licence, not the name on the building.

It is marked licence name. A state lists a community under the legal entity that holds its licence — typically a single-purpose company set up for one property — and that community almost certainly operate under a different public name. The state does not publish that name, so we do not have it and will not guess: attaching the wrong community’s inspection record to a familiar brand would be worse than an odd name. If you are looking for a community by its brand and cannot find it here, search by street address instead.