For 4 of 10, Resident Survey Data Influences Choice of Senior Living/Care Facility

Facility administrators say that survey results, either from national rankings or facility resident surveys, or both, influence 38% of the decision process. While in some cases in-person tours, word of mouth, and physician referrals still outrank published survey scores as direct decision drivers — survey data increasingly shapes these other channels indirectly.

Here’s a look at the importance of surveys among each type of care facility.

Resident Surveys Growing As a Deciding Factor
Summary by Care Category

Care Type	Role of Survey Data	Primary Limiting Factor
Independent Living	Moderate-high; actively used by research-savvy seniors as validator	Tour experience and personal fit ultimately dominate
Assisted Living	Moderate; family-facing ratings growing in use; drives reputation	Awareness gap; many families don't find quality data easily
Memory Care	Moderate; primarily a negative filter and emotional reassurance tool	Resident can't self-report; family-only data has limits
Nursing Home	Lower in practice; high-value when decision isn't crisis-driven	Crisis-driven decisions default to proximity and availability

The overarching finding is that survey data's influence is inversely proportional to the urgency of the decision. Where seniors and families have time to research — independent and assisted living — ratings matter more. Where placement is forced by a health crisis — nursing home, and sometimes memory care — location, availability, and referrals from discharge planners override published data. This is why proactive planning, which the industry is now actively encouraging, is the single biggest lever for making survey data more consequential in all four categories.

A More Detailed Look At The Role Of Survey Data By Living Situation

Independent Living

Resident survey data matters here more than in any other category — and for a distinctive reason: the person making the decision is typically the senior themselves, fully cognitively intact, shopping with time and intention.

The survey may be commissioned by the facility or may be from a national evaluator. Every year, U.S. News & World Report releases its Best Senior Living ratings using surveys to compare independent living, assisted living, memory care, and continuing care retirement communities. The 2025 edition analyzed nearly 450,000 resident and family survey responses from over 3,800 communities. These ratings have become a credible reference point that informed seniors and their families actively consult during the research phase.

But facility surveys still matter. Families can review each care community's survey-based ratings for the care type they're considering, seeing how many families completed surveys, the overall rating, and individual scores by category — allowing them to match a community's strengths to their specific priorities, such as dining or activities.

J.D. Power's annual satisfaction study carries particular weight in independent living because it measures the residents themselves — not just family proxies. The 2025 study found overall satisfaction with independent living communities was up 25 points year-over-year, driven by improvements in price paid for services, community staff, and community buildings and grounds — the very dimensions prospective residents interrogate in their search.

In practice, survey data in independent living functions as a filter and validator. It rarely drives the initial selection, but it confirms or disqualifies communities already on a shortlist. Sophisticated shoppers — and the boomer generation is research-savvy — treat published scores the way they treat hotel or restaurant reviews: a starting signal, not the final word.

Assisted Living

Here the decision shifts to family members as primary decision-makers, and survey data takes on a somewhat different role. U.S. News's Best Senior Living methodology for assisted living derives scores from both resident and family responses, with care taken to balance the two given that residents tended to respond more positively than family members across nearly every question. This reflects the complexity of the assisted living selection: the person experiencing the care and the person choosing it often have different perspectives.

Family caregivers' top concern about senior living communities was high costs, cited by 64%, followed closely by care quality and staffing. Survey data is most useful to families precisely because it translates their hardest-to-assess concerns — staff warmth, responsiveness, and quality of daily life — into something observable.

J.D. Power's 2025 study found that the year-over-year increase in family member satisfaction with assisted living was driven by dining, resident activities, and resident apartment quality — all dimensions that survey data captures well and that are difficult to assess in a single tour visit. 

In assisted living, survey data functions most powerfully as a reputation signal: high scores on independent platforms like U.S. News and J.D. Power are increasingly used in operators' own marketing materials, and families encountering a highly rated community during their search are more likely to tour it. Negative reviews on Google, Caring.com, or SeniorAdvisor can effectively eliminate a community from consideration before a tour ever happens.

Memory Care

Survey data in memory care is complicated by a fundamental methodological problem: the resident cannot typically self-report. For memory care, U.S. News Best Senior Living scores are derived only from family responses, since residents are cognitively unable to participate. This makes the survey data a measure of family experience and confidence in the provider — not the resident's own wellbeing, which may or may not correlate.

Satisfaction data has significant limitations as more residents experience cognitive decline and families live far away or are only loosely involved. Surveys can't always capture the full picture and often come too late to prevent dissatisfaction.

Despite these limitations, survey-based ratings are increasingly important in memory care selection for a specific reason: families are making a highly consequential decision about a loved one who cannot advocate for themselves, and they are searching for any credible signal of trustworthiness. Published survey scores — particularly from credible third parties — partially fill that need.

In 2025, over 80% of top-rated memory care communities invested in high-tech safety systems, and those that earn quality designations (from the Alzheimer's Association or The Joint Commission) are actively promoted. These certification and survey-based ratings have become a differentiator in marketing and a validation tool for families making an anguished decision under emotional pressure.

In memory care, survey data is arguably most important as a negative filter: a community with poor published ratings or a pattern of negative family reviews is effectively disqualified, while high ratings provide emotional reassurance that reduces decision anxiety but rarely drives the final choice alone.

Nursing Home / Skilled Nursing Facility

This is where the most research exists — and where the gap between available data and actual consumer use is widest and most well-documented. 

The CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System for nursing homes is the most comprehensive publicly available care quality tool in senior care. Based on surveys of users, 85% of consumers report they find the information they are looking for on Nursing Home Compare. It is the most highly rated. Compare website of all CMS comparison websites.

Consumers were receptive to using Internet-based information about quality as one source of information, but choice was limited by the need for specialized services, proximity to family or health care providers, and availability of Medicaid beds.

A further complication: a national study of 10,676 nursing homes found that only approximately half had similar rankings under CMS Five-Star ratings and under measures based on consumers' actual values — meaning the government's rating system and what families actually care about don't always align. Families are more attuned to observable "hotel quality" factors (cleanliness, food, atmosphere, staff warmth) while the Five-Star system weights clinical outcomes and inspection results more heavily.

In nursing home selection, survey data is most influential when the decision is not crisis driven. Families who have time to plan — those researching long-term placement proactively rather than in a hospital discharge situation — consult ratings meaningfully. Those in crisis default to proximity, availability, and referrals.