Free senior care guidance for Nassau and Suffolk County families. No cost to you, ever.
Call (934) 200-2603
Long Island Senior Advisor

How to Verify a Facility's License

The state tools that show license status and inspection history, and why a clean review page means nothing about the regulatory record.

Home›State Rules›How to Verify a Facility's License

How to check a Long Island community's record yourself

New York’s public license and inspection lookup is NYS Health Profiles. Adult Care Facilities — Adult Homes, Enriched Housing, Residences for Adults, ALR, EALR, SNALR and ALP — are searchable at profiles.health.ny.gov/acf, filterable by region/county (Nassau and Suffolk are both listed). Nursing homes have a separate tool at profiles.health.ny.gov/nursing_home. Each facility’s page shows an inspections tab with survey history.

Unlike nursing homes, assisted living communities in New York are not assigned CMS-style star ratings — the inspection record itself is what you are reading, not a summary score.

To file a complaint or reach the region covering Long Island directly, call NYSDOH’s Metropolitan Area Regional Office – Long Island (MARO-LI) at 631-851-3098.

What to actually look at once you are in there

Pulling the record is easy. Reading it usefully is the part nobody explains.

  • Match the license type to your parent's needs, not just to today. Ask directly about admission and retention criteria.
  • Check the licensee name against the operator. Ownership turns over regularly, and buildings are often marketed under a brand that differs from the license holder.
  • Read deficiency narratives, do not count citations. A missing signature and an injured resident can appear in the same document, formatted identically.
  • Look for repetition across surveys. One citation is an incident. The same finding across consecutive surveys is a pattern.

Questions families ask

What is NY Connects, and how does it relate to my county's Office for the Aging?

NY Connects is New York State's Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) network, a free, no-obligation service that helps individuals and families learn about and access long-term care options. In both Nassau and Suffolk counties, the local NY Connects access point runs through the county Office for the Aging: Nassau's information is linked from its Office for the Aging page, and Suffolk's Office for the Aging directly operates its NY Connects, or Choices for Long Term Care, function through its main line, 631-853-8200.

Does Nassau County or Suffolk County have a bigger, more spread-out senior care market?

Suffolk County's senior care market is more geographically spread out, stretching from denser, transit-served western hamlets such as Huntington, Brentwood, Bay Shore, and Islip to more rural, exurban North and South Fork communities that have become popular retirement-relocation destinations. Nassau County's market is more geographically compact, concentrated along its village and LIRR corridor towns, including Garden City, Rockville Centre, Great Neck, Freeport, Long Beach, and Mineola.

What's the difference between standard assisted living and memory care in New York?

Standard assisted living in New York is licensed as an Assisted Living Residence (ALR) under 10 NYCRR Part 1001. Memory care is not a separate license; it's delivered through a Special Needs Assisted Living Residence (SNALR) certification, an additional certification an ALR can obtain to serve residents with dementia or cognitive impairments per an Individualized Service Plan, regulated under the same Part 1001 rules.

What's the difference between a nursing home and an assisted living residence in New York, regulation-wise?

Nursing homes are licensed under 10 NYCRR Part 415, Nursing Homes - Minimum Standards, a distinct regulatory chapter focused on skilled, medically intensive care. Assisted Living Residences are licensed under 10 NYCRR Part 1001, and can only exist as an additional certification on top of an already-licensed Adult Home or Enriched Housing Program, themselves licensed under 18 NYCRR Parts 487 and 488.

At what point does hourly in-home care cost more than assisted living in New York?

Using CareScout's 2025 New York State medians, in-home non-medical caregiving costs $35 per hour, or about $6,673 per month at 44 hours a week, compared to assisted living's median of $7,110 per month ($225 per day). At roughly 45 to 46 hours per week of paid in-home care, the monthly cost crosses over and exceeds the assisted living median; families needing care beyond that, including any overnight or 24/7 coverage, would generally spend more on home care than on a private one-bedroom assisted living apartment.

Not sure where to start?

Answer five questions and a local advisor will come back with senior care options in your area that actually fit your situation and budget. It is free, and there is no obligation.

Find care options
Find senior care — free