Are you paid by every option you are showing me?
No, and no agency is. The homes that pay us are the ones that have signed a fee agreement with us, and that is a smaller set than the homes we can name for you. Ask which of the ones in front of you are which.
Then ask what the fee is worth, because the size of it is the size of the incentive. Senioridy, a senior living directory, describes referral agreements as typically paying the agency 70 to 80 percent of the resident's first month's rent, averaging $3,000 to $5,000. Terms vary, so ask about the agreement in front of you. Against what a room costs here, that is real money on one move in.
| Care setting | Typical Los Angeles rent | Fee at 70 to 80 percent of one month |
|---|---|---|
| Board and care home | $3,500 to $6,000 | $2,450 to $4,800 |
| Assisted living | $4,500 to $8,000 | $3,150 to $6,400 |
| Memory care | $5,500 to $9,000 | $3,850 to $7,200 |
The rents are typical Los Angeles ranges, not prices we set or quote. The fee column is arithmetic on the percentage Senioridy publishes. It is not our fee.
Are there homes you will not show me because they do not pay you?
We will name a home we cannot be paid for, and you should still assume the money shapes the list. The homes with an agreement are the ones we call every week and the ones whose openings we know today, so they arrive first and they arrive with more detail.
The part no agency's promise fixes is the home that has no agreement with anybody. It is on nobody's list, not ours and not a national referral site's, less hidden from you than never reached for, and the only way it reaches you is if you find it in the state register yourself. The same goes for the options that pay a placement agency nothing. Medi-Cal Assisted Living Waiver placements, subsidized senior housing, and staying home with in home care can all go unmentioned by an industry that only earns on a move in.
So ask what is missing rather than what is on the list, and whether anything was left off for a reason that has to do with us rather than with your mother. If a home pays us nothing, that is a fact about our contract and not a fact about the home.
Have you actually been inside these homes?
Ask which ones, and ask when. There is a real difference between an advisor who walked that hallway on a Tuesday afternoon and one reading you a brochure you could have downloaded yourself, and it does not show up in how confidently either of them talks.
Some homes we know from standing in them and some we know from other families and from the phone, and we will tell you which is which rather than blurring the two. A home nobody here has been inside is not disqualified. It is one to look at harder yourself, and we should say so when we hand it to you.
Will you come with me on the tour?
Ask before you schedule, and ask about that specific tour rather than in general. You will get a yes or a no on that date, not a maybe that quietly dissolves. When it is a no, the visit still has to be worth the trip.
What a second person adds is not company. When we have been in that building before, we notice what changed, an administrator who left, a hallway that smells different at four in the afternoon than it did in the spring, a dining room running twenty minutes behind. On a first visit a family has nothing to compare any of it to.
We also ask the staffing question in the form that gets an answer. Not what is your ratio, which produces a number nobody can check, but how many caregivers are on the floor right now and how many were on last night at two in the morning, asked of the caregiver on shift rather than the person walking you around. And we ask what a family will not ask in front of their own mother. What would make you say she is no longer appropriate here, and what happens to her then.
The catch is that the building knows us, and a marketing director behaves differently with an agency standing there. You get a straighter answer on staffing and a more polished tour at the same time, which is why the second visit should be yours alone, at a mealtime, unannounced, written down before you leave the parking lot. By the third building what you remember is the lobby, and the lobby is the part that was designed.
What happens to my phone number?
It goes to the communities we introduce you to. We do not sell it and we do not rent it to data brokers or advertisers. Ask this before you fill in any form, ours included, because the answer varies more than families expect.
It varies because not everyone works this way. Senioridy, describing how the industry operates, says an agency may broadcast a family's details to multiple communities it holds referral agreements with. That is why one form filled in at eleven at night turns into a week of calls from buildings nobody in your family has heard of.
When we introduce you to a community, that community receives your name, your contact details, and enough about the care needs, the timing and the budget to say whether they can serve your family. That is a handoff, not a heads up. The phone rings, and it is that community's sales office rather than us. A building with your number will try more than once, telling one of them no does not tell the others, and going quiet does not end it, because a room they could be renting is a room they will keep calling about.
None of that is a scandal. It is what a marketing department does with a lead, which is why the question worth asking any agency is not whether your information is safe, but how many buildings are about to have it.
You have more say in this than most families use. Tell us to hold everything until you say go and we will. Name one community to leave out. Ask which ones already have your details, and ask us to delete our copy, though deleting ours does not reach a community that already has yours, so that call has to go to them. Our privacy policy sets out the rest.
One more worth asking anybody: how long your name stays attached to them. Senioridy describes agreements that pay out if you move in within a specified timeframe, up to two years in some cases. Ask what that window is before you hand the number over.
Will you still help if the first placement does not work out?
Ask this one last, and listen to the whole answer. An agency is paid when someone moves in, not when the move works, and a published description of these contracts says many of them claw part of the fee back only if the resident leaves inside about thirty days.
So the financial reason to care runs out roughly a month after the boxes are unpacked, and after that we have no stake in whether your mother is still all right. Call us anyway. A placement that fails in the first year usually fails for a reason somebody could see coming, a care level described optimistically or a night shift thinner than the tour suggested, and the second one goes better when we know what went wrong in the first.
If the trouble is the care rather than the fit, we are not the first call. Complaints about a licensed home go to Community Care Licensing, and the Long Term Care Ombudsman program advocates for residents directly. Both start at the CDSS resources for residents and families page, and you do not need our permission or anyone else's to use them.
- CDSS resources for residents and families, California Department of Social Services
How do I check a home myself, whatever anyone tells me?
Look it up. Every board and care home and assisted living community for older adults in California is licensed by the California Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division, and the record is public. Search any home on your list by name, by city or by license number in the CCLD Care Facility Search, and use the license number when a home gives you one, because names in this industry are unreliable.
Do that whoever referred you there, this agency included. The state's search does go down from time to time, so if it will not load, try again rather than assuming a home has something to hide.
- CCLD Care Facility Search, California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division
So how is Senior Placement Agency LA paid?
You have just read six questions. Turn them on us. We send families no bill. A community or a licensed care home pays us after a family we introduced moves in, so we earn when a move happens and earn nothing when it does not, and you should read every page on this site knowing that.
We have not put our own figure on this site, so ask for it out loud. The number is not really what you are testing. You are testing whether it arrives without a pause.
Keep reading
- How do senior placement agencies get paid?
- Whether an agency's referral fee changes the rate you are quoted
- Questions to ask assisted living communities on a tour
- How to check an RCFE license in California
- What a care home license does not tell you, and what to ask instead
- Senior living advisors in Los Angeles
Ask us the one you least want to ask
Start with whichever question feels most awkward, because that is the one worth asking. Placement guidance is free to families, and you are allowed to check us first.
Questions families ask us
- What should I ask before I give a placement agency my phone number?
- Ask how many communities will receive your details, whether any of them are sent automatically, and how long your name stays attached to the agency under its agreements. Ask whether you can hold all of it until you say go. An agency that answers those three plainly will usually answer the harder questions plainly too.
- Is it rude to ask an advisor how much they are paid?
- No, and the reaction tells you more than the number does. You are being asked to trust a stranger's short list for a decision that costs thousands of dollars a month, and the person making that list is paid by the places on it. Asking who pays and how much is ordinary due diligence, and any professional should expect it.
- How do I know whether an advisor has really been inside a home?
- Ask when they were last there, then ask something a brochure cannot answer. What does the place smell like at four in the afternoon. How many caregivers are on overnight. Who was running the building the last time they walked through it. Specifics come easily to people who were actually there.
- Should a placement advisor come with me on the tour?
- It helps, and it is fair to ask for it, though a no is not a red flag by itself. What matters is getting a straight answer before you schedule rather than a maybe that quietly dissolves. If you are going alone, go at a mealtime, go unannounced the second time, and write down what you saw before you leave the parking lot.
- Can I ask an agency to delete my information?
- Yes, and California law gives you the right to ask. There is a catch worth knowing before you use it. Deleting the agency's copy does nothing about the communities that already have your details, and those are the ones calling you. So ask which communities received them, then call each one yourself. That second call is the one that stops the phone.
- Who do I call if something goes wrong after the move?
- Community Care Licensing handles complaints about licensed residential care facilities, and the Long Term Care Ombudsman program advocates for residents in long term care settings. Both are reachable through the state's resources for residents and families. If anyone is in immediate danger, call emergency services first and report it afterward.
- What does a bad answer to these questions sound like?
- Reassurance in place of an answer. Do not worry about that. Everyone does it this way. Let us focus on your mom. Deflection is information, and so is a long pause before a simple question about money. You are not looking for perfect answers here. You are looking for someone who does not flinch at being checked.
- Does asking all this mean I should avoid free placement agencies?
- No. The model is legitimate, and it puts local knowledge in front of families who would otherwise spend two weeks on the phone finding out which homes have a room. It simply is not neutral, and neither is any other commissioned professional. Ask the questions, get what you can in writing, and check the home's license yourself no matter who sent you there.