Florida's assisted living license categories

Which state agency licenses assisted living in Polk County, and under what law?

Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) licenses every assisted living facility in Polk County under Part I of Chapter 429, Florida Statutes; the license names each category the facility may provide: standard, extended congregate care (ECC), limited nursing services (LNS), limited mental health (LMH) and, once rules exist, memory care services.

Cities such as Lakeland, Winter Haven and Bartow handle zoning, building permits and fire inspection, but none of them issues a care license. AHCA's licenses last two years; the procedural side (renewals, ownership changes, inspections) comes from Part II of Chapter 408, and the day-to-day operating standards from rule chapter 59A-36 of the Florida Administrative Code. One operator running two separate addresses needs two licenses, while several buildings on a single campus may share one (s. 429.07(2)).

Polk County has 43 AHCA-licensed ALFs with 2,956 licensed beds between them. Of those, 10 add a limited mental health license, 8 limited nursing services and 1 extended congregate care, while 18 report a memory care program on their AHCA profile (records retrieved November 6, 2026).

What can a standard-licensed ALF do for a resident?

A standard license allows housing, meals, supervision and personal services such as help with bathing, grooming, dressing, eating, walking and medications, and the facility may use a licensed nurse to give medications and carry out the short list of tasks allowed by s. 429.255.

The boundary is ongoing nursing. A standard facility's own staff cannot, for example, manage a wound that needs daily skilled dressing changes; the resident brings in a licensed home health agency or private nurse for that. The admission rule (59A-36.006) requires that a resident can transfer, alone or with help, is not bedridden (hospice is the exception) and does not need nursing supervision around the clock.

How does an extended congregate care (ECC) license change things?

ECC lets an ALF deliver nursing and supportive services beyond the standard scope so that residents can stay as they decline; AHCA grants it only to a facility that has held an ALF license for two years without serious sanctions, and the first ECC license is provisional for as long as six months.

An ECC facility writes its own continued-residency criteria inside AHCA's guidelines, yet it still cannot keep someone who needs 24-hour nursing supervision. A registered nurse employed or contracted by AHCA monitors ECC residents at least twice a year, with one of those visits waivable after 24 clean months (s. 429.07(3)(b)). The designation may apply to an entire building or a single wing, so ask where the ECC beds are.

What are limited nursing services (LNS) and limited mental health (LMH) licenses?

LNS lets the facility's own nurses perform a defined set of nursing tasks for residents who still meet standard admission criteria, with AHCA nurse monitoring at least yearly; LMH is mandatory for any ALF housing one or more residents with a serious mental illness who receive optional state supplementation.

For LMH residents the facility keeps a community living support plan and a cooperative agreement with the mental health provider, and the administrator and direct-care staff complete at least six hours of mental health training within six months (s. 429.075). Both licenses describe permitted services. Neither one says anything about quality.

Where does the new memory care services license fit?

Chapter 2026-102, Laws of Florida, added s. 429.076: once AHCA adopts rules (the deadline is June 1, 2027), an ALF that serves memory care residents, or advertises memory, dementia or Alzheimer's care, must hold a memory care services license, and facilities licensed before the rules take effect get six months to obtain it.

The rules will cover admission criteria, minimum services and activities, staff training at least equal to s. 430.5025 dementia training, physical plant standards, contract terms, and at least one staff member awake at all hours. Until they arrive, s. 429.178 still governs ALFs that advertise special Alzheimer's care, and that section is repealed when the new rules are adopted. Full detail: the memory care license.