Healthy Outcomes: The Life Plan Communities Outlook for 2024

On this episode of Healthy Outcomes, our host Mark Ross interviews Margaret Johnson, senior director and the senior living sector lead at Fitch Ratings, an international credit rating agency. Together, Mark and Margaret discuss various issues related to Life Plan Communities (LPC), the US Not-for-Profit Life Plan Communities Outlook Report for 2024, what drives Fitch’s rating process, and more. 

 Topics of discussion include:  

• Fitch Ratings perspective on 2023 industry challenges for LPCs and Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC), including workforce issues, inflation, occupancy, and reimbursement pressures. 
• The Fitch Ratings 2024 outlook.  
• The impact of real estate prices on the economics of the LPC and CCRC business model. 
• The correlation between entrance fee pricing and construction costs to build new independent living units.  
• Key credit drivers and financial ratios for LPCs and CCRCs. 
• Key strategies LPCs and CCRCs are seeking to execute in the next three to five years.  

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About our guest

Margaret Johnson

Margaret Johnson is a senior director and the senior living sector lead at Fitch Ratings. Before joining Fitch in 2016, Margaret was a Director at BlackRock, serving most recently as a Portfolio Manager on the Institutional and Wealth Management Municipal Strategies team. Prior to that, she was a municipal credit analyst, at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, until it was acquired by BlackRock in 2006. As an analyst, Margaret covered a portfolio of credits primarily in the healthcare, senior living and education sectors, as well as tax-backed issuers and public utilities.