Can You Trust Online Reviews of Senior Living?

Lilisity · October 26, 2026

You can trust some of them, for some things. The star average on a senior living listing is a weak signal. It is often built from a handful of reviews, and some of those were written by people with a reason to be very happy or very angry. The written details are more useful: what the reviewer saw, when they saw it, and how the community answered.

Reviews also can't tell you what inspectors found, how many nurses work the evening shift, or what dinner looks like on a Tuesday. For that, look up the inspection record, check the federal ratings if it's a nursing home, and visit at mealtime and in the evening.

Why the star average can mislead

Most senior living communities have far fewer reviews than a restaurant down the street. A small number of reviews makes the average swing hard, and a few things push it around.

Very few reviews. Four five-star reviews and one one-star review give you a 4.2. That number says almost nothing about the care your mom would get. Before you look at the stars, look at how many reviews there are and how far back they go.

Reviews that arrive in a burst. If a dozen five-star reviews appear in the same week or two, look at the dates and the wording. A burst can follow an event at the community, a request from the marketing office, or reviews written by staff and their friends. Many short reviews with nearly the same wording and no details about care are a reason to read more carefully.

Reviews written at the very start. A family that moved in two weeks ago is often relieved and grateful, and the first weeks can feel very good. That review is honest, and it still tells you little about month eight.

The angry one-off. A single furious review may describe something serious, or it may come from a hard week after a parent declined or died. One review is a data point. Several reviews describing the same problem over several months tell you much more.

Sites that get paid by communities. Some senior living websites and placement services are free to families because communities pay them. With some of these services, the payment depends on a family moving in. Their information may be accurate. The payment can still affect which communities you see first and how they are described. Ask any website or advisor: "Who pays you, and does a community pay you more if we move there?" Our post on whether senior living referrers have your best interests at heart goes into more detail.

What the law says about fake reviews

The Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials went into effect on October 21, 2024. It applies to businesses in general, including senior living communities and the websites that list them. According to the FTC, the rule bans:

• Fake reviews and testimonials, including ones written by AI or by people who never used the business
• Paying or rewarding people for reviews that have to be positive (or negative)
• Reviews by owners, managers or employees that don't clearly disclose their connection to the business
• A website the business controls that claims to give independent reviews
• Using groundless legal threats or intimidation to get negative reviews removed

The FTC can seek civil penalties against businesses that knowingly break the rule.

There is one gap families should know about. The FTC's own questions-and-answers page says the rule does not specifically ban a business from asking only its happiest customers for reviews, though that practice could still violate the broader FTC Act. So a community can still invite the families it expects to be pleased, and the average can drift up. If you see a review you believe is fake, you can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

What to read for instead

Skip the stars for a minute and read the reviews themselves. Here is what tends to be useful.

When you find a pattern, bring it to the tour and ask about it plainly. You can say: "I read several reviews about missing laundry last spring. What changed after that, and who do families call now if something goes missing?" A good community will answer with specifics.

What reviews can't tell you

Reviews are opinions. These are the things to check that no review can show you.

The inspection record. Assisted living is licensed and regulated by each state, and states use different rules, inspection schedules and report formats. Your state's licensing agency can tell you where to find the reports. Nursing homes that take Medicare or Medicaid also get federal health inspections, and the results are posted on Medicare.gov Care Compare. Medicare's guide to choosing a nursing home tells families to look at these survey findings, and says the nursing home must have its most recent survey report available for you to read.

Federal ratings and staffing, for nursing homes. CMS gives every certified nursing home an overall star rating, plus separate ratings for health inspections, staffing and quality measures. Care Compare also shows nurse staffing hours per resident per day and staff turnover. CMS itself says no rating system covers everything and recommends using the ratings along with a visit. Our post on how to read a nursing home inspection report and star rating explains what each part means.

A visit at mealtime and in the evening. A scheduled tour shows a community at the time it expects you. Medicare's guide encourages families to visit at other times without an appointment, and to go back a second time on a different day and at a different time, because staffing can be different at different times of day and on weekends. Sit through a meal. Come back around 6 or 7 p.m. and watch how long it takes someone to answer a call light.

People who know the building. Your state's Long-Term Care Ombudsman program advocates for residents of nursing homes and assisted living. Its services are free and confidential. You can find your program at ltcombudsman.org.

How Lilisity handles testimonials

On Lilisity, the comments from residents and families are called testimonials, and they are gathered differently from open online reviews. Lilisity is a service run by Senior Living Alliance (SLA). Here is how the testimonials are collected and verified:

1. An SLA team member reaches a resident or family member who has firsthand experience with the community.
2. They talk by phone. Testimonials never come from a form letter or an anonymous web submission.
3. The team records the person's words, their rating and the date of the conversation.
4. SLA verifies the person before the testimonial is published, with its date.

Lilisity does not scrape, aggregate or accept anonymous online reviews. Testimonials are published as given, including critical ones.

You should also know who pays. SLA member communities pay SLA for its resident and family interview program, and those interviews are where testimonials come from. Any community can also pay Lilisity a flat monthly fee to manage its own listing. According to how we are paid, payment never changes a testimonial, a rating or the order of search results, and no community pays Lilisity per inquiry, per referral or per move-in.

Testimonials are one voice among several, so read them the way you'd read any review: look at the dates and the details. On the same community page, Lilisity shows the public record next to them. For assisted living, that is the state licensing and inspection record where the state publishes one. For nursing homes, it is the CMS star ratings, staffing and the deficiencies inspectors cited, with links to the full reports. You can search for a community or start from assisted living, memory care or nursing homes.

A short checklist before you decide

1. Count the reviews and look at the dates before you look at the stars.
2. Read the one-star and two-star reviews, and look for the same complaint more than once.
3. Read how management replied.
4. Ask any website or advisor who pays them.
5. Look up the inspection record for the community.
6. For a nursing home, check the CMS ratings, staffing hours and turnover.
7. Visit at a meal and again in the evening, without an appointment.
8. Call your Long-Term Care Ombudsman and ask what they know about the community.

Bring the questions from your reading to the tour. Our assisted living tour questions and the free tour scorecard can help you keep track.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources