Senior living · Inquiry calls
Senior living inquiry questions: what to ask, in what order, and what never to ask
Good senior living inquiry questions follow the family’s story. Who is the care for, what changed and what help is needed? How soon, who decides, how will they pay and when can they visit? Here they are in order, with why each matters. You also get a list to paste into your 365vox agent, and the questions fair housing law keeps off the phone.
Last updated October 30, 2026
The question many calls skip
“Would you like to come and see us?” Across its customers’ calls, one call-analytics vendor found that 60% of senior care providers don’t ask leads to schedule a tour or assessment (Invoca, 2026; vendor data). Your agent asks it because it’s on your list in step 3.
How to use these senior living discovery questions
Discovery is the sales word for it. The family hears it as being listened to.
An inquiry call is often the first time a family says out loud that a parent needs help. These questions follow the order families usually tell the story, so the call feels like a conversation, not a form.
Your virtual receptionist asks the questions you put in step 3 of the 365vox portal, in your order, and answers from your business rules. It books the appointment in your connected calendar during the call and confirms it with the caller. It makes no call-backs and sends no texts: follow-up is your team’s.
The questions to ask on a senior living inquiry call, in order
Each question, why it matters, and how the answer is used. Ask them in this order, and phrase care questions around services, never diagnoses.
Who are you calling about, and how are you related to them?
Why it matters: the caller and the future resident are often different people, and both matter. How it’s used: the record leads with “daughter, calling for her mother”, so your sales director knows who to call back and who to invite. Ask the future resident’s first name too, so your team can use it.
Where do they live now, and what’s changed recently?
Why it matters: the change is the reason for the call and the best clue to timing. It might be a hospital stay, a fall, a spouse who can no longer help or a move closer to family. How it’s used: a recent hospital stay may mean short-term rehab comes first, so your team asks about discharge dates (see hospital referral intake). Let the caller describe it; never ask for a diagnosis.
What kind of help would make the biggest difference day to day?
Why it matters: it points to the right level of service without asking about a disability. Offer services as examples: meals, help with bathing or dressing, help with medications, a secure memory care setting. How it’s used: your sales director knows what to show on the tour. In assisted living and memory care, your nurse’s assessment decides the care plan and the care fee, not this answer.
When are you hoping to make a move?
Why it matters: urgency shapes everything after the call. One analysis covered 1.6 million leads across 3,214 communities. In 2023, 56% of assisted living move-ins came within 30 days of the first inquiry. The share was 62% in memory care, 49% in independent living and 28% in CCRCs (McKnight’s Senior Living; analysis by Lana Peck, now at the senior living software company Aline). How it’s used: your sales director reads the timeline in each record and calls the families moving soonest first.
Who else will help make the decision?
Why it matters: siblings, a spouse and the future resident often decide together. How it’s used: your team invites everyone to the tour. If someone holds a power of attorney, the agent notes it for later.
How are you planning to pay for care?
Why it matters: it tells your team whether you can serve this family. Offer the options you accept, from your rules: private pay, long-term care insurance, VA Aid and Attendance, or a Medicaid waiver program where you take one. How it’s used: the agent records the answer as stated and never says whether someone qualifies. Aid and Attendance is an amount added to a VA pension for people who meet the VA’s conditions (VA). States develop Medicaid home and community-based services waivers within federal guidelines (Medicaid.gov).
Would you like to come and see us? Which days and times suit you?
Why it matters: it’s the step many calls skip (Invoca 2026; vendor data). How it’s used: It books the appointment in your connected calendar during the call and confirms it with the caller.
How did you hear about us?
Why it matters: placement agencies are paid by the community when a family they referred moves in. In 2024, the chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging wrote to one agency. His letter quoted its website: the community “only pays for first month’s rent and care” (Sen. Casey). How it’s used: the source decides whether a fee is owed and which marketing works. The agent records it word for word.
Is there anything else you’d like our team to know before they call you back?
Why it matters: it catches what the questions missed: a pet, a couple moving together, the best time to call. How it’s used: your team reads it before the call-back.
An assisted living inquiry call script to paste into step 3
Copy the list, then add each question in step 3, Questions to ask, in this order. Name, phone and email are already there, so this list makes 15 of your 20.
Change the wording to sound like you. Keep the care question about services, not conditions.
Copy all into step 3, Questions to ask
Who are you calling about, and how are you related to them? What’s their first name? Where do they live now? What’s changed recently that made you call? What kind of help would make the biggest difference day to day: meals, help with bathing or dressing, help with medications, a secure memory care setting, or something else? When are you hoping to make a move? Who else will help make the decision? How are you planning to pay for care: private pay, long-term care insurance, VA benefits, or a Medicaid program? Would you like to come for a tour? Which days and times suit you? Would anyone else like to join the tour? How did you hear about us? Is there anything else you’d like our team to know before they call you back?
12 questions. With the three already in step 3, that’s 15 of the 20 the portal allows.
Questions never to ask on the phone, and what to ask instead
Each of these can sound helpful. Each one asks about a disability, steers a family or raises contract terms too early.
| Don’t ask or say | Why not | Ask or say instead |
|---|---|---|
| “Does your mother have dementia?” | Asks about a disability or a diagnosis | “What kind of help would make the biggest difference day to day?” |
| “Is she in a wheelchair? Can she walk on her own?” | Asks about the nature or severity of a disability | “Is there anything that would make a tour easier for her, like a wheelchair at the door?” |
| “Can she still live independently?” | A screening question about ability; HUD settled a complaint alleging similar questions | “Here are the services we offer. Our nurse meets every family to plan care.” |
| “What medications is he on?” | Clinical detail that belongs in the nurse’s assessment | “Would help with medications be useful?” |
| “Is she on Medicaid? We’re private pay only.” | Screens before the family has heard what you offer; nursing homes can’t require assurance that someone isn’t eligible for Medicaid | “How are you planning to pay for care?” Then state what you accept. |
| “She’d fit in better at our other community.” | A steering statement | Describe your services and amenities, the same way to everyone |
| “Most of our residents are [any group].” | Signals a preference about who belongs | Describe activities and programs, not people |
| “Will you sign to pay if she can’t?” | Contract terms aren’t for a phone call; nursing homes can’t require a third party to promise payment as a condition of admission | “Our team will go through the agreement with you in person.” |
Sources: 24 CFR 100.75 (discriminatory statements, written or oral); 24 CFR 100.202(c) (no inquiry into whether an applicant has a disability, or its nature or severity, apart from narrow exceptions asked of all applicants); HUD, 2017 (a senior community allegedly asked intrusive disability questions and said it was for people who could live independently); 42 CFR 483.15(a) (nursing home admissions). General information, not legal or clinical advice. Rules differ by state and province and change over time, so check yours.
The fair housing limits on senior living inquiry questions
Senior housing is housing, so fair housing rules reach the phone call. Three points every sales team should know.
- The rule against discriminatory statements applies to “all written or oral notices or statements” about selling or renting a dwelling (24 CFR 100.75(b)). A recorded phone call is a statement.
- Asking whether an applicant has a disability, or how severe it is, is unlawful under 24 CFR 100.202(c), apart from narrow exceptions asked of every applicant. Whether one applies to your memory care neighborhood is a question for your counsel.
- The 55+ and 62+ exemption is limited to familial status: it lets qualifying housing turn away families with children. It doesn’t protect against liability for discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, disability or national origin (24 CFR 100.301).
Have counsel read your list
General information, not legal or clinical advice. Rules differ by state and province and change over time, so check yours. State and local laws may protect more groups than federal law does.
When the caller isn’t ready for a tour
Many inquiry calls are research. The agent leaves the door open and gets the details to your team.
Answer what they asked
Services, starting rates and how to visit, from your rules. If the answer isn’t there, the agent says so and takes the question.
Offer the tour once
Your rules can set the words: “Whenever you’re ready, we’d love to show you around. Would you like me to book a time now, or should our team call you?”
Note what they’d like sent
A brochure or a price sheet. The agent notes the request; your team sends it.
Hand it to your team
The record lands in your portal and the email goes to your sales director. The agent makes no outgoing calls, sends no texts and runs no follow-up campaigns.
The senior living inquiry call flow
Build it yourself
Build your inquiry line in the 365vox portal
Families often describe a parent’s health on an inquiry call. If yours will, answer Yes to “Will callers share health information with this agent?” when you create the agent, and accept the health-information agreement. Then set these on the Customize screen.
You set all of this yourself in the 365vox portal, on the Customize screen. Everything saves as you type; then you submit, test the agent with a real call and activate it.
Customize · your agent
- Step 2, GreetingFor example:
Thanks for calling Maple Court Senior Living. I’m an AI assistant, and this call is recorded. Are you calling about a current resident, or looking for a place for someone?
- Step 3, Questions to askAdd the list above, in order. Name, phone and email are already there, with Confirm on, so the agent reads them back.
- Step 4, Forward to a personYour sales director or front desk, for callers who ask for a person. If nobody answers within 20 seconds, the agent takes a message.
- Step 5, IntegrationsYour tour calendar, so the agent books tours during the call. A senior living CRM with an open API gets each family’s answers and the call notes.
- Step 7, When your agent answersOverflow: your sales line rings first, and the agent answers if nobody picks up within 20 seconds, including during tours and after hours.
- Step 8, Call notificationsThe sales director and the sales inbox. For a health agent, the emails say a call came in; the answers are in the portal.
- Step 9, Business rulesYour levels of service, starting rates labelled as starting rates, the payers you accept, tour hours, and what to do when a caller isn’t ready.
- Step 10, Things your agent will never doThe five built-in rules stay on. Add
Never ask about a diagnosis or a disability
andNever quote a care fee.
What an inquiry call costs
$0.75 a conversation minute, billed by the second. No monthly plan, no setup fee and no long-term contract. Taxes where applicable.
Example: 40 inquiry calls a month
A 90-apartment assisted living community.
- Inquiry calls a month
- 40
- Average call, with 12 questions
- 6 min
40 calls × 6 min × $0.75 = $180, or $4.50 a call, plus taxes where applicable. Illustrative numbers chosen by 365vox: your cost follows your own calls.
Comparing virtual receptionist services?
Live answering services usually sell monthly plans of minutes or calls. 365vox is an AI virtual receptionist that answers forwarded calls on the first ring, day and night, follows your approved answers and costs $0.75 a minute, billed by the second, with no plan.
More on senior living calls
Senior living inquiry question FAQs
What are the most important senior living inquiry questions?
Can we ask whether a prospect has dementia on a memory care inquiry call?
How should the agent ask about VA Aid and Attendance?
Why ask how a family heard about our community?
Should the agent quote prices on a senior living inquiry call?
What if a family won’t answer one of the inquiry questions?
How many inquiry questions can the agent ask on one call?
Can the agent put the tour straight on our calendar?
Ask the right questions, then ask for the tour.
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