Oklahoma's own licensing law calls it a "continuum of care facility," and the Oklahoma City metro has at least one real example of it: a single campus that carries a resident from independent living through memory care and skilled nursing under one entrance fee. Here is what that fee actually buys, the three contract types that change the answer, and the gap Oklahoma doesn't fill in for you.
By Oklahoma City Senior Advisor Care Team · September 26, 2026
Most of the assisted living and residential care home options in the Oklahoma City metro are single-level: you pay for the level of care your parent needs today, and if needs grow, you may eventually need to move to a different building or home licensed for a higher level of care. A continuing care retirement community, usually called a CCRC or a "life plan community" nationally, is built to avoid that second move. One campus offers independent living, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing in the same place, so a resident can move between levels of care as needs change without leaving the community.
Oklahoma has its own name for this in the law. The Continuum of Care and Assisted Living Act (Title 63 O.S. §1-890 et seq.) defines a "continuum of care facility" as a home, establishment, or institution that provides nursing facility services together with assisted living center services, adult day care center services, or both. The Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) licenses these campuses, with the nursing component held to the Nursing Home Care Act (Title 63 O.S. §1-1901, OAC 310:675) and the assisted living component held to OAC 310:663, the same rules that apply to a standalone assisted living center. A facility that combines those services under one roof, or one contract, is legally a continuum of care facility in Oklahoma, whether or not its marketing ever uses that phrase.
The Oklahoma City metro has a working example in Concordia, a life plan community on roughly 15 acres in northwest Oklahoma City, which advertises what it calls a "guaranteed continuum of care" spanning independent living, assisted living, memory care, and long-term skilled nursing on one campus. Rather than month-to-month rent, residents typically pay a one-time entrance deposit sized to the health benefit plan chosen, the size of the residence, the number of occupants, and the refund plan selected, on top of an ongoing monthly service fee. Refund plans commonly range from a 50%-refundable option to a fully declining-balance plan, which changes both the upfront cost and what comes back to the resident's estate later.
That structure is a genuinely different financial model than the rest of the Oklahoma City metro senior-care market. A standalone assisted living community or one of Oklahoma's dense network of licensed residential care homes generally runs a straightforward monthly rate, in the roughly $3,900–$5,300 range for assisted living in this metro, with no large upfront deposit. A life plan community instead front-loads a large entrance fee, often well into six figures depending on residence size and refund plan, in exchange for a contractual right to move into higher levels of care later, sometimes at little or no cost increase.
Nationally, CCRC contracts fall into three general types, and the labels are worth learning before you tour, because they determine how much future financial risk the community absorbs versus how much you keep. A Type A, or life care, contract carries the highest entrance fee and monthly fee but includes future assisted living, memory care, and nursing care at little to no increase in cost, functioning as a form of long-term-care insurance built into the contract. A Type B, or modified, contract includes a limited amount of higher-level care, a set number of days or a discounted rate, before market pricing kicks in. A Type C, or fee-for-service, contract has the lowest entrance fee but bills every level of care at the market rate when you actually need it, keeping more of your money now but leaving you exposed to the full monthly cost of memory care or nursing later.
The single question worth asking before any signature goes on a life plan community's contract is which of these three it is, in plain terms: if my spouse needs memory care next year, what does that cost on top of what I'm already paying, and for how long? Ask for that answer in writing, not as a verbal reassurance from the sales team, and ask what portion of the entrance fee is refundable to your estate if the resident dies or leaves early.
Oklahoma's Continuum of Care and Assisted Living Act licenses the care a continuum of care facility delivers — staffing, nursing standards, assisted living rules — the same way it licenses any assisted living center or nursing home. What it does not appear to do, based on the OSDH's own published guidance on the Act, is separately regulate or insure the entrance-fee finances the way a small number of other states require through their insurance departments. In practice, that means the state licensing process is not the safeguard for your entrance-fee deposit; the community's own financial health is.
That makes independent financial due diligence a family's job, not a formality. Before signing, ask for the community's most recent audited financial statements and, if one exists, an actuarial study of its ability to fund future care obligations under its contract type. Ask how the entrance-fee trust or reserve is held and by whom, and ask directly what happens to your refund if the community is ever sold, merged, or closed. An elder-law attorney or a fee-only financial advisor who has read the actual contract, not the brochure, is worth the cost before a six-figure deposit changes hands.
A life plan community's entrance fee is a private-pay arrangement, and that has real consequences for families who may eventually need public benefits. Spending a large sum on an entrance fee, then needing SoonerCare's ADvantage Waiver a few years later, can run into Medicaid's asset rules and its transfer look-back period, so a family who expects to need Medicaid within the next few years should have that conversation with an elder-law attorney before, not after, paying an entrance fee. VA Aid and Attendance, worth roughly $1,800–$2,900 a month for eligible wartime veterans and surviving spouses, can help offset the ongoing monthly service fee once a resident is living at the community, but it does not apply to the one-time entrance deposit itself.
For a family already fairly confident they'll need SoonerCare or the ADvantage Waiver within a few years, a residential care home or a standalone assisted living community with a simple monthly rate — and no large asset spent down into an entrance fee — is usually the more Medicaid-compatible choice.
A life plan community tends to fit a healthy, independent-living couple or individual with substantial liquid assets, who wants to plan ahead, lock in a known cost structure for future care, and avoid re-vetting a new building or home each time needs change. It tends to fit poorly for a family already facing an urgent placement need, since the health screening, underwriting, and move-in process for an entrance-fee community typically takes longer than the 24–72 hour turnaround a residential care home can often manage after a hospital discharge.
A free local advisor can pull a specific community's OSDH licensing and inspection history, walk through its entrance-fee disclosure statement line by line, and compare that all-in cost against a standalone assisted living community or a residential care home for the same family — before any deposit is at stake.
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