Is A Place for Mom really free? How senior placement services make money
If you have started looking for care, you have probably found services that offer a free advisor to help you choose a senior living community or nursing home. The help is real and the service is free to you. It is worth understanding who pays for it, because that shapes the advice you get.
Who pays, and for what
These services are paid by the facilities, not by families. When a family moves a loved one into a facility in the service's network, the facility pays the service a commission. Reporting has put that commission at roughly one month's rent per placement, which in some states averages around several thousand dollars. The advisor is paid when a placement happens.
Why that can be a conflict of interest
Two things follow from a facility-paid model. First, the options a family is shown are generally limited to facilities that pay the service a commission, so a home that does not pay may never come up. Second, the advisor earns money only if a move happens, which is a different incentive than helping a family decide whether and where to move.
This is not a fringe concern. A Washington Post investigation reported that more than a third of the facilities one large service highly recommended had been cited by regulators for poor care, and that many advisors had never visited the buildings they recommended. The U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging has publicly raised the conflict of interest, and Forbes has covered the model under the banner of buyer beware.
A free advisor can genuinely save you time. Just know that free to you does not mean neutral, and ask directly which facilities pay them and whether any nearby homes were left off your list.
How to protect your family
- Ask any advisor plainly: which facilities in my area pay you, and are there any you did not show me?
- Check the official inspection, staffing, and penalty record for every option yourself.
- Weigh the record together with your own tour, not a recommendation alone.
The record, with no one paying us
NursingHomeLens exists to be the other half of this. We take no money from facilities, ever. We do not rank or recommend, and we do not book tours or sell leads. We show you the official government inspection, staffing, penalty, and ownership record for any nursing home in plain English, so you can decide for yourself. You can look up any Medicare-certified nursing home free: search by name, city, or ZIP on the home page. The full official record is there at no cost, and we take no money from facilities.
Common questions
Is A Place for Mom free?
How do senior placement services make money?