How Placement Agencies Help Fill Assisted Living Facilities
Feb 21, 2025
Finding new residents is one of the biggest challenges in running an assisted living facility. If you’re just starting out, you might wonder—should I use a placement agency to help fill my beds?
Placement agencies can connect you with families searching for assisted living options, but they also come with costs and trade-offs. Let’s break down how they work, their pros and cons, and whether they’re the right choice for your business.
Check out the video, too:
What is a Placement Agency?
A placement agency helps match seniors with assisted living homes, nursing homes, and independent living facilities.
Here’s how it works:
π They Find Leads – Agencies use websites, ads, and networking to find families looking for care.
π They Build a Database – They keep a list of seniors needing placement and match them with nearby facilities.
π€ They Partner With You – When a family chooses your facility, you pay the agency a fee—either a flat rate or a percentage of the first month’s rent.
Think of them like real estate agents, but instead of selling houses, they help families find care homes.
Pros of Using a Placement Agency
βοΈ More Leads – Agencies attract families actively searching for assisted living.
βοΈ Faster Move-Ins – They can help you fill vacancies quicker.
βοΈ Better Visibility – Being listed with an agency can boost your credibility.
If you’re new and struggling to find residents, placement agencies can give you a jump-start.
Cons of Using a Placement Agency
β High Costs – Fees can be $1,500–$2,500+ upfront, plus a percentage of the first month’s rent.
β No Guarantees – You pay for leads, but not all will convert into move-ins.
β You Still Do the Work – You’ll need to follow up, give tours, and close the deal yourself.
β They Prioritize Residents, Not You – Agencies focus on helping families, not necessarily supporting your business.
For small facilities, these costs can add up quickly.
Big vs. Small Placement Agencies
π’ Big Agencies (Like A Place for Mom)
βοΈ Huge reach
βοΈ Lots of leads
β Expensive (high referral fees)
β May prioritize bigger facilities
π Local Agencies
βοΈ Personalized service
βοΈ Lower costs
βοΈ More community-focused
β Fewer leads (but often higher quality)
For smaller homes, a local placement agency may be a better fit than a big corporate one.
Should You Use a Placement Agency?
It depends!
π‘ Small Facilities: Partnering with local placement agencies can help, but the cost may be too high. Instead, focus on networking and referrals.
π’ Larger Facilities: Big placement agencies can ensure a steady stream of leads, even if they’re pricey.
π‘ Not using an agency? Focus on:
β
SEO & Online Marketing – Make sure families can find your website!
β
Building Referral Relationships – Connect with hospitals, home health agencies, and community centers.
β
Networking – Attend senior-focused events and caregiver support groups.
Pro Tip: Create a Referral Network
If you don’t want to rely on placement agencies, build your own referral system:
πΉ Partner with local hospitals, home health agencies, and community organizations.
πΉ Stay in touch with discharge planners and social workers—they help seniors find care.
πΉ Offer incentives to professionals who refer residents to you.
Final Thoughts
Placement agencies can help fill your facility, but they aren’t the only option.
If you’re just starting, weigh the costs carefully. A placement agency can jump-start your business, but a strong local network can provide long-term success without the hefty fees.
What’s your strategy for finding new residents? Let us know in the comments!
Ready to Start Your Assisted Living Journey?
Are you ready to take the next step in your assisted living investing journey? Download our Business Plan Checklist, which will guide you in creating a successful business plan for your assisted living facility.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:01
hey friend I'm Brandon Gustafson I help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months in today's video we're going to be getting into using a placement agency for your assisted living facility should you do it or [Music] not hey friend welcome back to the channel before we get started I want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net we have our free underwriting calculator over there that will help you get started so make sure you make sure you go over and
00:00:31
grab that now let's get into the topic for today's video we're going to be talking about should you use a placement agency for your Assisted Living business you know for your facility is it the right thing for you or not let's let's talk about that in in today's video so let's first start off with talking about what a placement agency actually is a placement agency it's a company that basically they go out and they find the people that want to be in your facility
00:00:57
so let's just use a an elderly care facility as an example so what they're going to do is they're going to go and do some networking they're going to they're going to be the ones that are going out and finding these people they have websites generally and they're finding the people that need the services for assisted living Independent Living nursing homes any of those options right there they're going out and they are finding those people and then they have this database of people
00:01:24
and then they partner with people like you that have facilities and they say you know you need residents we have residents let's let's create a partnership and we'll give you the leads and if they go with you then you pay us a fee for that that's kind of at its core what a placement agency is and how they work so they they're the ones that are out there they're they're probably you know in rehab facilities they've got their websites they're doing marketing to get people to come in and say you
00:01:50
know I'm really interested I need a home to put my loved one in or potentially I need a home for myself people are out looking for places to stay and they just don't know where to do it and these companies these placement agencies have really honed in on the SEO the search engine optimization to get the people that are interested in you know that are interested in finding a place to stay so that's kind of what their whole goal is that's what what they do for their business model and so
00:02:22
it's it's actually kind of hard for you to rank up really high when people are searching for you know assisted living near me because these companies these placement agencies pay a lot of money to rank up really high for those types of Search terms so that people will find them and start using them so just something you want to be aware of as you get into this um and you know as you're starting your business ranking high for certain things is going to be good but you're also not only competing against
00:02:48
other assisted living facilities you're going to be competing against placement agencies for trying to get these people to sign up for their services so that they can get paid from you as as a provider of a system living so that's kind of how they work and how they function over there with these placement agencies the the placement agencies themselves they get paid directly from you as a provider so they're they actually it's it's kind of like let's use real estate as an example because
00:03:13
it's I think a good one if you have a realtor and you are a buyer you get to use that Realtor to go help you find properties and things like that you go and you buy a home and then that Realtor gets paid from the seller their commissions come from the seller when the home is is sold and so it's kind of the same thing with the placement agency they are essentially like a realtor for people that need these services and so they go and they find those people these people need help they introduce them to
00:03:42
you know 10 places that have services and then that Resident decides which ones they want to go to and then if you are the provider that they decide to go to you're going to pay a chunk of money over to the placement agency there's some you know it could be the first month's rent it could be percentage of it they kind of there's going to be documents that you're going to sign with that placement agency that's going to tell you exactly what that looks like but uh you're going to be able to build
00:04:08
that in get really comfortable with what those numbers are and then as you are kind of doing your projections your financial projections you'll be able to tell you know if it's going to work or not for you to use a placement agency but those placement agencies they get paid from you as a provider so who are those placement agencies that you might work with there's one that's it's a huge one and you probably have heard of them or if you do like a quick internet search you're going to find them um
00:04:35
everywhere It's A Place for Mom so A Place for Mom is big in this space they they are probably one of the most well-known options out there for placement agencies and they have a very big web presence there are others that are out there but that's the one that like sticks out of my mind when I try to search these things A Place for Mom pops up every single time they're spending a lot of money in this space because it's it is their core business model the other option that you could go
00:05:02
though is like a small local placement agency so these exist and they are local and and they kind of you can really create some good Partnerships there and and so if you want to find something like this they're kind of hard to find but if you go and search for you know a senior placement agency near me and kind of go through all the SEO things that are on there for A Place for Mom and some of those other places that are going to pop up on that list you'll eventually be able to get down to some
00:05:30
of these more local ones and those are the ones that are kind of ingrained in the community and and those are the ones that you might end up having a better experience working with as you get into this if you want to go the route of using a placement agency so the question then is should you use a placement agency so I'm going to go through some of the pros and cons for you so you kind of have an understanding of what that looks like from from a positive standpoint for why you would want to use
00:05:54
a placement agency um there there's a few reasons number one is going to be you're going to get more leads um you're going to have more opportunities for people to come into your home more people you're getting in front of more brand recognition like it gets you in front of a few more people so more leads is a really big one number two is going to be they could help you fill your beds quickly if you need if you've got a few openings and things like that partnering with a placement agency that has
00:06:20
hundreds of potential clients is going to be a really good way for you to get in front of them and and help you potentially fill those beds more quickly than if you were to do lot of this on your own so that's the second thing and then the third positive for why you should use a placement agency is it's good advertising you're you're paying for it because you you know you're paying for those leads you're paying to use their services and things like that but it does get you in front of an
00:06:47
audience and and puts you on their websites which gives you like maybe a point of you Authority um and it makes you come up in people's searches a little bit more frequently so that's going to be really helpful for you as trying to figure that out now let's talk about why you may not want to use placement agency number one is going to be their expensive so when you use a placement agency typically you're going to be paying them an upfront fee and I can't remember we actually talked with A
00:07:16
Place for Mom we decided not to go with them because it was cost prohibitive for us as a small facility I want to say it was like ,500 to $2500 as a base fee and then we were going to have to pay not a monthly fee fee anytime that there was a place um plus there was a waiting list so it can be really costly for you as as you're trying to get in and and use one of these services and there's no guarantee that you will get those residents well it probably is going to increase the likelihood of it it gives
00:07:44
you in front of more people the marketing aspect all the things that we just talked about with the positives there's no guarantee that you're getting something so you could be paying a lot of money to not get a lot of results and get people into the house the second thing is these placement agencies they they don't care all that about you as a provider you as a facility that they don't care about you yes they get paid but they are so much more focused on the resident creating a good experience for
00:08:09
the resident creating a good experience and and and providing them with a lot of opportunities because while they get paid from you the provider Their audience the people that they want to cater to and they want to make sure that this is a good experience for is the resident because if they don't have a good experience with residents then they're not going to be able to provide them to providers are not going to get paid and so it's it's there's kind of this Dynamic there that it's a little
00:08:34
bit weird that you just need to be aware of that they're probably a little bit more focused on creating a good experience for the resident and not so much for you as a provider so you just kind of want to take that into consideration as well and the third thing is you are the one that's in charge of doing all the followup so there's no like you know I'm using A Place for Mom and yeah I might get something access to their tools and things like that but in reality I'm still doing all the work I'm still doing
00:09:00
everything I I'm doing the initial call I'm bringing them in for a tour of the facility I'm doing all the assessments there's nothing there that is making the you know that placement agency where they're helping you expedite that process you're still going to have to internalize those processes so you're still going to need to have these things in place so that you can move forward with it so that's another thing where it's just like is it really worth it to use a placement agency when you're still
00:09:26
going to have to to do all of the work and things like that it's up for you up for you to decide if it's for you or not now what I want to really talk to you about is what about for a small assisted living home a small facility a care home uh does that make sense and what I would say is for you if you're one of these small homes like what we teach here at Assisted Living investing then you're probably going to be better off to use a small placement agency small local placement agency that can kind of help
00:09:56
you through the process rather than a large placement agency unless you have a network of facilities and you need to do things but building that relationship one-on-one with a another small business owner that's local to you is really going to benefit you quite a bit as you move through all of this and you're trying to place the beds and provide the best service possible to your residents so what I would suggest if you want to go the route of a placement agency and you're a small facility go find some of
00:10:22
these small placement agencies partner with a home health agency partner with some of these other groups and create a bit of a Network there so you can all work together and create this ecosystem that's going to benefit the community where you're at um this is how small business works and why it's so important for you to do that if you're a big facility and things like that and and you know you're one of the brook Dells or something like that and you need this go ahead and and do a partner with one
00:10:47
of the large placement agencies like you know you're going to probably get some cost breaks and things like that in there but you're a small facility I want to look out for you and make sure that you're getting the best services that you need so I would suggest going with somebody that's more small more local that's going to help you out in in meeting the needs so you can best serve your residents if you're interested in learning more about placement agencies and comment placement agency down below
00:11:10
so I can do a little bit more of a deep dive on that and comment your questions or your experience with placement agency as well if you found this video to be helpful make sure you like the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we go and put this content out we go live on Tuesdays we put out other long form video on Thursdays so we're putting out a lot of contact content make sure you get to the Facebook group as well where I put out more questions and and some
00:11:33
other long form things and get over to the website we have a ton of resources over there free resources we'll have links down below we have our blog is is going crazy we have the podcast we have a lot of information out here on Assisted Living investing because what I'm here to do is help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months if you are interested in and need some extra help if you need help building that business plan that base of everything you do check out the business planning
00:11:59
guide it it's it's going to help you underwrite do market research and build that business plan and get you really started off on the right foot so you can start making some progress and if you feel like you need some extra help along the way check out the accelerator program or check out The Mastermind program I love helping people we're bringing a ton of new people in here I love helping people along their Journey it's been so much fun to work with you all that are members of The Mastermind
00:12:24
and for you that are watching this that are going to be future Mastermind members super excited to work with you go ahead and check that out at Assisted Living investing. netmaster to learn more about that so I hope all this was helpful those residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you you just don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we're here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months I love doing this I love
00:12:48
helping you and I want to make sure that you remember that it doesn't take a lot just a little bit keep going step by step by step and if you do and you're consistent and persistent I promise you you're going to be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music]
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