How to research assisted living without giving out your phone number
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I filled out forms on a lot of senior living websites while researching care for my mom. Months later, I'm still getting calls and emails from numbers I don't recognize. What I wanted was pricing. What I got was a sales pipeline.
That's not a bug. That's the business model.
Here is how that machine works, and how to do your research without feeding it your phone number.
Why does one search form trigger a dozen sales calls?
A search form on most senior living sites is a sales pipeline, not a search. The site routes your phone number to multiple facilities and referral agents at the same time, which is what triggers the call flood.
The biggest of these services is A Place for Mom. When you fill out one of their forms, the facilities pay them a commission often equal to most or all of a resident's first month of rent: thousands of dollars per move-in. (See the Washington Post investigation for the details.)
The "free advisor" assigned to you is paid the same way, on commission, when you move in. Every recommendation is filtered through that incentive. The model has drawn a U.S. Senate investigation, with A Place for Mom accused of steering families toward facilities with documented safety violations while collecting those fees.
So when you Google "assisted living near me" and fill out what looks like a simple search form, you aren't searching. You're entering a sales pipeline. The flood of calls isn't a malfunction. It's the product working exactly as designed.
How do you tell a real directory from a lead funnel?
A real directory shows you prices, photos, and facility details without asking for your phone number. A lead funnel gates that information behind a form. If the information is gated, close the tab.
AssistedLiving.fyi shows starting prices, photos, bed counts, and the FYI Safety Score for 7,000+ licensed facilities across California, all on a map. No account. No form. You just look. (We're California-only for now. The rest of the advice in this piece works in any state.)
And since this whole article is about incentives, here are ours. AssistedLiving.fyi makes money when a facility pays a flat monthly fee to claim and manage its listing. We don't sell phone numbers. We don't earn commissions on where you move. The information you see is the information you see, regardless of who's paying us. You are never the product.
Your local Area Agency on Aging is another good starting point. It's a free, non-commercial source of facility lists and guidance, with no sales incentive. Look them up by your county.
That's what a directory should be. You start with what actually matters: is it close enough, can we afford it, does it look like somewhere my mom would be okay living. From there, you narrow. No one calls you. No one "follows up."
How do you check a facility's safety record?
Every licensed assisted living facility in California is inspected by the state, and the results are public. The signal is right there. Most families never see it.
The California Community Care Licensing Division maintains the inspection records: citations, substantiated complaints, dates, and severity classification. You can access the raw records at ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch and read them facility by facility. It's also slow, the interface is dated, and comparing facilities across the dataset is harder than it should be. We built the FYI Safety Score for exactly this. One number per facility, on a 1.0 to 10.0 scale, with a plain-language summary of what the record shows.
The score isn't the thing you decide on. It's the gut check. A place might look great in photos, the price might work, it might be five minutes from your house, and the safety score confirms (or doesn't) that the state's records line up with what you're seeing.
If you want the longer argument for why this signal matters more than online reviews, that's a separate piece.
What should you actually compare between facilities?
The four things that matter for an apples-to-apples comparison: starting price, what triggers a higher price tier, what's included, and bed count.
Pricing in assisted living isn't a single number. Most facilities charge a base rent plus care-level fees that rise as your parent needs more help. When you're comparing costs, ask about:
- The starting price, before any care add-ons. This is the floor, not the actual cost.
- What triggers a move to a higher care tier, and how much that costs per month.
- What's included versus extra. Medication management, laundry, transportation, two-person assists, escorts to medical appointments: any of these can be base or add-on depending on the facility.
If a facility won't tell you its starting price, that tells you something.
Bed count matters too. A 6-bed care home and a 200-bed community are completely different experiences. Neither is inherently better. But you should know which one you're looking at before you visit, because they're different conversations.
What if you have to fill out a form anyway?
Use a free secondary phone number and a separate email, so referral calls never reach your real line.
- Set up a free Google Voice number at voice.google.com. Use it for every senior care inquiry. The calls go to a number you check only when you want to.
- Create a dedicated email address (Gmail, ProtonMail, anything) just for this research. Use it on every form. Real correspondence with facilities can move to your real email later.
- Never put your primary phone number on a senior living website form. Treat that field as a tripwire.
When your search is done, you stop checking that number and that email. The calls never touch your daily life.
Where do you start?
When you're researching assisted living for someone you love, do these in order:
- Skip the referral sites entirely. Don't fill out the form. Don't request the "free guide." Don't talk to the "free advisor" until you've done your own research first. The pipeline doesn't work in your favor.
- Browse a real directory. AssistedLiving.fyi for California, or your state's licensing agency's public facility search if you're elsewhere. Look at price, location, safety record, photos, bed count. Build a shortlist without entering any contact information.
- Check the safety record of every facility on your shortlist. Use the FYI Safety Score if it's California; pull the raw inspection record from the state regulator otherwise. Cut any facilities whose record gives you pause.
- Call the facilities directly. Use the phone numbers on their own websites, not the ones on referral sites. Book the tours yourself.
- Visit in person. Twice. At least one of the visits unannounced. Marketing is not the facility.
The information you need to make this decision is already public. The reason it feels like you have to go through a sales pipeline to find it is because the sales pipeline has gotten between you and the information. That's the gap we built the site to close.
Start your search on AssistedLiving.fyi. No form. No calls. Just look.
Frequently asked questions
Can I tour an assisted living facility without giving out my phone number?
Yes. Call the facility directly rather than going through a referral site, and ask to schedule a tour. You can find a facility's direct number on its own website or on AssistedLiving.fyi. The referral services route your information to multiple facilities at once, which is what triggers the call flood. Calling the facility you're actually interested in routes only to them.
Are free senior living advisors actually free?
Free senior living advisors are free to you, but they are paid by the facilities. When you move in through a referral service, the facility pays that service a fee that often runs into the thousands of dollars. It doesn't come out of your pocket directly, but it means the advisor has a financial reason to steer you toward certain communities. Every recommendation is filtered through that incentive.
How do I check an assisted living facility's safety record in California?
Every licensed facility in California is inspected by the Community Care Licensing Division and the results are public. You can access the raw records at ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch, or use AssistedLiving.fyi, which processes that same data into a single FYI Safety Score per facility plus a plain-language summary of what the record actually shows.
What's the difference between assisted living and a nursing home?
Assisted living helps with daily activities like bathing, dressing, and medication management in a residential setting. Nursing homes provide round-the-clock medical care for people with more complex health needs. They're different levels of care, regulated differently, at different costs. Assisted living is licensed at the state level; nursing homes are federally regulated through Medicare and Medicaid.
How much does assisted living cost?
Costs vary widely by state, facility, and how much care a resident needs. National cost surveys put the median around $6,000 a month, with state medians ranging from roughly $4,300 to over $9,000. On AssistedLiving.fyi, starting prices are listed directly on each facility's profile, with no form required and no phone call necessary.
About the author
Steve Selzer is the founder of AssistedLiving.fyi. He started this work while searching for assisted living for his mom, who has dementia, after running into the same opaque pricing, sales calls, and impossible-to-read inspection records that every family in the same situation runs into. The site exists to make the information families actually need easier to find.