What questions should I actually ask on a facility tour?
Don't ask the marketing director. Ask the person mopping the floor — and tour twice, once unannounced.
The marketing director will be pleasant. The food in the model dining room will be good. The model unit will be staged. None of this tells you what your parent's life will be like at 2pm on a Tuesday in February.
Here are the questions that do, organized by who you should ask.
For the marketing director or executive director:
- What's your current overnight staffing ratio, by floor?
- What was your staff turnover last year? (Anything over 60% is a yellow flag; over 100% is a red one.)
- What's the all-in monthly cost for a resident at care level [match your parent's likely level]?
- How often do you do care-level assessments and what's the typical first-year increase?
- What was your most recent state survey result? Can I have a copy today?
- What conditions or care needs would require a resident to move out?
For the director of nursing or care director:
- Walk me through how you'd handle [your parent's specific situation — Parkinson's, diabetes, sundowning, etc.]
- How do you handle medication management — and what's your medication error rate?
- Tell me about your last hospital transfer — why and what happened?
- How are sundowning and behavioral issues handled?
- What's your antipsychotic prescribing rate compared to the state average?
For a caregiver, ideally not on the official tour:
- How long have you worked here?
- How many residents do you cover on this shift?
- What do you wish families knew before moving in?
For families you find in the hallway or dining room:
- Would you do this again?
- What's the one thing you wish you'd asked before move-in?
- How responsive is leadership when there's a problem?
Tour at least twice — once on the official tour, once unannounced at a less-flattering hour. 4–6pm shift change is informative. What you see during shift change is closer to a representative day than what you see at 11am Tuesday.