A community you are touring
Assisted living, residential care, memory care, an adult foster home, a nursing facility — anywhere your parent would move in.
The single most useful thing to know about a tour is that it is the wrong instrument for most of what you want to learn. You are seeing a building at its calmest hour, guided by someone whose job is to show it well, at a moment when you are looking to be reassured. Oregon already publishes the part a tour cannot show you, free and without an account. Read it first, then use the hour to check what you read.
Do this before you go, not after
Open the community's own file on the state licensing register. It carries inspection reports, substantiated violations and any regulatory action, and it is refreshed every 24 hours. Every community on this site links straight to its own file — you do not have to search for it. Two things worth knowing as you read one: a finding is not automatically a red flag, because size, license type and how many complaints a place attracts all push the count around; and an empty record is not automatically reassuring, because independent living is not licensed as care in Oregon and has no inspection file at all.
What to ask
1. What is your caregiver-to-resident ratio on the night shift, and on a weekend?
Staffing is the strongest evidence-backed quality signal there is, and it is a question rather than a thing you can see — you are touring on a weekday morning, which is the best-staffed hour of the week.
A bad answer sounds like: A ratio for daytime weekdays only, or 'we staff to acuity' with no number attached. Acuity-based staffing is a real and reasonable model; a manager who runs one can still tell you what last Saturday night looked like.
2. How many caregivers left in the last year, and how many have been here more than two years?
Turnover is what a family actually experiences as quality: whether the person helping your mother to the bathroom at 3am knows her. Nobody publishes it, so the only way to get it is to ask, and the reaction to being asked is itself information.
A bad answer sounds like: 'We have a great team.' Also: an answer that arrives instantly and roundly — 'about ten percent' — with no sign of anyone having counted.
3. Who is here overnight, and is anyone here awake and licensed?
'Staff on site 24 hours' can mean a caregiver asleep in a back room. If your parent needs medication at 2am or falls, the answer to this decides what happens next.
A bad answer sounds like: 'Someone is always here' without saying awake, and without saying what their license is.
4. What would make you ask her to leave?
Every setting has a ceiling, and a move-out at the wrong moment is the outcome families are least prepared for. Ask it in this direction — not 'can you handle dementia?' — because it forces the ceiling to be named rather than reassured away.
A bad answer sounds like: 'We can care for almost anyone.' The truthful answer names conditions: two-person transfers, wandering, a feeding tube, behavior that puts other residents at risk.
5. What is the total monthly bill for someone who needs what she needs — and what has that number done over the last three years?
The advertised rate is usually a base rent, and care is priced on top by level or by point score. The number you are quoted at the tour is not the number on the bill, and the increase history is the part nobody volunteers.
A bad answer sounds like: A base rate with no care tier attached, or 'increases are typically modest'. Ask for the last three years as numbers.
6. If her money runs out, what happens?
Communities differ enormously here and it does not come up until it is urgent. Some accept Medicaid for a resident who spent down in place; some accept it only for a share of units; many do not take it at all.
A bad answer sounds like: 'We'd work with you.' The checkable version is: do you hold a Medicaid contract, how many of your units are available to it, and is there a private-pay period first.
7. May I come back unannounced, at a mealtime or in the evening?
This is the question that converts the tour into something worth doing. The answer is almost always yes, and the visit you make on your own schedule tells you more than the one they scheduled.
A bad answer sounds like: Anything conditional. A licensed setting that discourages an unscheduled visit from a prospective family has told you something.
What to check yourself
This is the half almost nobody does, and it is free. A public record answers questions no conversation will.
The inspection record, in the state's own file
Every community's row on this site links to its file on the Oregon DHS register. Free, no account, refreshed every 24 hours.
That the license is current and the license type matches what they are selling you
The same file carries the license type and status. 'Memory care' is an endorsement layered on an assisted-living or residential-care license — an adult foster home cannot hold one, so a five-bed home advertising memory care is describing what it does, not what it is licensed for.
The contract, before you sign, with the move-out clause read first
Read the discharge and transfer section before the price section. It is the clause that decides whether the answer to 'what would make you ask her to leave' is enforceable.
What the Ombudsman knows
Oregon's Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman provides, in the state's own words, “no cost advocacy and problem-solving services for residents of long-term care settings” — nursing facilities, assisted living, residential care and adult foster homes. It is independent of the industry, which is the point, and it is free. 1-800-522-2602.
What should worry you
None of these is proof of anything on its own. Each one is a reason to ask one more question before you decide.
- A move-in deposit due today, or a rate that expires this week. Nothing about a licensed bed is a limited-time offer.
- A tour that never goes near the rooms your parent would actually live in, or is routed around a wing.
- Residents you never see, or a common room that is full at 11am and empty at 6pm.
- A smell of urine that the guide addresses before you do.
- The manager cannot name their own turnover, or reacts to being asked as though it were rude.
- A license record you were not told about — not because a finding is disqualifying, but because they knew you could read it and let you not.
Where this comes from
Every legal claim on this page is a paraphrase of one of these, read on the date shown. Nothing here is our opinion about what the law requires.
- OAR 333-536-0007 — In-Home Care Agencies: Classification — The four in-home care classifications and what each may provide, quoted from the rule. Read 2026-08-12.
- OAR 333-536-0093 — Criminal Records Checks; 333-536-0065 Service Plan; 333-536-0066 Initial Visit and Monitoring — That an agency must complete a records check and fitness determination before direct client contact, and must produce a service plan with monitoring. Read 2026-08-12.
- ORS 443.370, 443.373, 443.376 — long-term care referral agents — The definition of a long-term care referral, the registration requirement, and the disclosure duties. Read 2026-08-12.
- Oregon DHS long-term care referral agent register — The public search a family uses to check an advisor. Read 2026-08-12.
- Oregon Health Authority — licensed in-home care agencies, home health agencies, hospices — 235 licensed in-home care agencies with classification and expiry; 62 licensed home health agencies; 65 hospices. Read 2026-08-12.
- CMS Provider Data Catalog — Home Health Care Agencies — 51 Medicare-certified home health agencies in Oregon, against the state's 62. Read 2026-08-12.
- Oregon DHS Licensed Long-Term Care Settings Search — Inspection reports, substantiated violations and regulatory actions per facility, refreshed every 24 hours. Read 2026-08-09.
- Oregon Department of Human Services — Carina — That the state's care-matching service is open to Medicaid, OPI and OPI-M consumers, and not to private-pay families. Read 2026-08-12.
- Oregon Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman — That the Ombudsman is a free, independent advocate for residents of licensed long-term care settings, and its toll-free number. Read 2026-08-12.
- Oregon DHS Long-Term Care Referral Registry — consumer resources — The state's own description of the Ombudsman's service, quoted on the touring kit. Read 2026-08-12.