About Premier Senior Living & Memory Care
Our Mission & Approach
Built by Someone Who Saw What Needed to Change
For 15 years, our founder Jason D. Churchill, PA-C, worked as a physician assistant treating residents inside senior living and memory care communities across the region. He examined residents, managed their medications, and saw how their days actually went when the tour was over and the brochure was closed. Too often, the care was simply not good enough. Not for lack of good people, because Jason met plenty of caregivers doing their best. But he watched systems stretched too thin turn residents into tasks on a schedule, and men and women with eight decades of stories treated like room numbers. He kept thinking the same thing on those drives home. I can do this better. So that's what he did.
Then life made it personal. In the years since, Jason's own mother developed dementia. Walking that road as a son, not just a clinician, changed the mission from professional to personal. Every question a family carries into a tour at our homes, Jason has carried himself. Is she safe? Is she respected? Is she still living a life, and not just being managed? Premier Senior Living and Memory Care exists to make the answer yes, for Jason’s family and for yours.
Meet Jason D. Churchill, PA-C
Jason D. Churchill, PA-C, is a nationally board-certified physician assistant with nearly two decades of clinical experience spanning family and senior medicine, interventional pain management, orthopedics, and interventional radiology. He earned his physician assistant degree from the Southern Illinois University Physician Assistant Program in Carbondale, and he has maintained his national certification continuously since 2006, passing every recertification exam since.
His entire career has been spent caring for the same southern Illinois communities Premier Senior Living serves today. He coordinated interventional radiology services for Cape Radiology Group, performing image-guided procedures at hospitals including Carbondale Memorial and Herrin Hospital. He first-assisted in surgery with Southern Illinois Orthopedics in Herrin. He expanded procedural care at Southern Illinois Pain Management right here in Marion. And he spent nearly seven years with Ferrell Hospital Community Foundation in Eldorado, providing family and senior medicine to a rural community that depended on him for everything from everyday checkups to pain care.
Along the way, Jason has performed more than 10,000 minimally invasive procedures with no major post-procedural complications, and he has cared for thousands of seniors in clinics, hospitals, and care communities across the region. Here's what all of that means for your family: the person who sets the standard of care in our homes has spent his whole career noticing the small health changes before they become big ones, coordinating with physicians and pharmacies, and knowing exactly when a doctor needs to take a look. That clinical eye is behind every care plan, every medication routine, and every caregiver standard at Premier Senior Living. The porch and the sweet tea are real. So is the experience and care behind them.
The Family Standard
Jason's care philosophy fits in one sentence, and every caregiver at Premier Senior Living is held to it. We care for every resident the way we would want our own parents cared for. In practice, that means real respect, real attention, and a genuine home, meals cooked in our own kitchen, nutritious food alongside the dishes residents actually love, a house that's clean and smells like a house should, and caregivers with a humble, whatever-it-takes commitment to each resident's wellbeing and happiness. It's not a slogan. It's the measuring stick for every decision made in both homes, every day.
Our Caregiver Standards
Families always want to know one thing above all: who will be caring for my mom? Here's our answer. Our caregivers are trained for the realities of daily senior care and dementia care: calm, respectful communication; safety and fall awareness; redirection rather than correction when confusion visits; and the patience that person-centered care requires. Training doesn't stop at hiring. Skills are refreshed and deepened on an ongoing basis, under the clinical eye of a founder who spent nearly two decades in medicine, and every caregiver is held to the same standard of caring for each resident the way they would want their own parents cared for.
Licensed and Accountable
Our Carterville home is licensed by the Illinois Department of Public Health under the state's Assisted Living and Shared Housing Act and our Marion home is in the licensing process. Because each of our homes serves 16 or fewer residents, Illinois licenses them as shared housing establishments, the license category created specifically for small residential homes like ours, and we provide assisted living services and memory care under that oversight. We think the license fits the home: small by design, accountable by law.
We believe families deserve care that answers to standards bigger than our own. Our homes operate under Illinois's oversight requirements for senior care residences, with the safety, health, and accountability standards that come with them, and we welcome that accountability gladly. Ask us anything on your tour about our standards, our safety practices, or how we handle the hard days. A home with nothing to hide answers plainly.
Why We Stay Small
Our Carterville home has 7 private rooms. Our Marion home has 16. That's not because we couldn't build bigger. It's because smaller is better, and it's the environment Jason would want for his own family; an actual home, intentionally small, where no one is ever just a number. Caregivers know every resident by name, by preference, and by story, and the details that get missed in big settings get noticed here. It's also why our homes feel woven into each community with church groups and school groups coming to visit, and the generations mix the way they would in any southern Illinois home.
Rooted in Southern Illinois
Both of our homes sit in beautiful country settings just minutes from town, in the scenic landscape near the Shawnee National Forest. Jason trained at SIU in Carbondale and has practiced in Marion, Herrin, Carbondale, and Eldorado. Premier isn't a brand that arrived in southern Illinois. It grew up here. Families within thirty miles of Carterville and Marion can visit easily and often, and we think that closeness matters as much as anything else we offer.
We'd be honored to show you how we care for our residents. Come walk through our home; you'll know within five minutes whether it feels right. Schedule a tour of our Carterville or Marion home, call (618) 201-5654, or reach out through our contact page whenever you're ready. We'll have the sweet tea ready.