By this point you have toured enough that the buildings have merged. These are the questions that still separate them.
Short answer
The questions that break a tie once the tours all start blurring together.
What to do, in order
- Compare the all-in numbers, not the base rents. Ask each for the total monthly cost at your parent's assessed care level, in writing, plus what triggers the next level and what it costs.
- Compare the rate increase histories. Three years of actual increases from each. This single question separates operators more reliably than any tour.
- Compare overnight staffing, not daytime. Daytime ratios look similar everywhere. Overnight is where they diverge and where problems happen.
- Pull both inspection records. Read the surveyor narratives rather than counting citations, and ask each administrator about a specific finding. How they answer is itself data.
- Ask the Medicaid question of both. If private funds might run out, a community that does not contract with STAR+PLUS is a future forced move regardless of how good it looks today.
- Go back unannounced. Same building, 7 p.m. on a weekday. Whichever one still looks right is your answer.