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.

HomeState RulesHow 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

How much spending money is a Medicaid nursing home resident allowed to keep each month in New York?

New York's Nursing Home Resident Personal Needs Allowance is $50 per month - the amount a Medicaid-funded nursing home resident is permitted to keep from their own income for personal expenses, with the rest going toward the cost of their care. According to the NY State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA), this figure has been unchanged since the 1980s, and NYSOFA notes that 33 other states currently pay a higher PNA, ranging from $52 to $200.

What is the MLTC special income standard for Long Island and why does it matter for Medicaid home care?

The special income standard for housing expenses, available to certain individuals enrolled in a Managed Long Term Care plan, varies by NYSDOH region - for the Long Island region specifically, it is $1,701.00. This regional figure is higher than most upstate regions (for comparison, the Central New York region's is $426 and the Western region's is $341), reflecting Long Island's higher housing costs, and remains in effect until updated federal poverty levels are published.

How much does assisted living cost in New York State?

According to CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey, the median cost of an assisted living community (private one-bedroom) in New York State is $225 per day, or about $7,110 per month and $85,320 per year. This is a statewide median - CareScout's published state-level data tables do not break out a separate Long Island or metro New York figure.

What does a nursing home cost per day in New York?

CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey puts the New York State median at $511 per day ($15,528/month, $186,333/year) for a semi-private room and $550 per day ($16,729/month, $200,750/year) for a private room, both based on 365 days of care. These are statewide figures; CareScout does not publish a separate Long Island-specific nursing home rate.

How much does hourly in-home caregiving cost in New York?

CareScout's 2025 Cost of Care Survey reports a New York State median of $35 per hour for what it now calls non-medical caregiver services, a category that merged the formerly separate homemaker services and home health aide categories in 2025 due to price convergence. Based on a 44-hour week, that works out to roughly $6,673 per month or $80,080 per year. Private duty nursing, a higher-acuity service, runs a New York State median of $120 per hour.

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