A total of 439 senior living and care communities in 44 states are being recognized as “Caring Stars of 2022” by Caring.com, the review and referral website announced this week. Louisville, KY-based Atria Senior Living and Winter Park, FL-based Holiday Retirement, acquired by Atria in 2021, top the list.
Caring Stars have been named since 2012. Any independent living, assisted living or memory care community or nursing home with a profile in Caring’s nationwide directory is eligible for the award from the Charlotte, NC-based website, which serves as a resource for family caregivers.
To earn the designation this year, communities must have had 10 or more published consumer reviews on their profile by Oct. 15, with an overall average rating of 4.5 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5, and they must have received three or more new reviews within the qualifying time frame (Oct. 15, 2020, to Oct. 15, 2021), including at least one of which had a five-star rating and at least one published in 2021. Additionally, each community must have provided public-facing responses to any one-star or two-star negative reviews. Caring.com also conducts an integrity audit of reviews and screens finalist communities using available licensing and inspection reports on state agency websites.
“This has been an unprecedented and very challenging couple of years, and the senior living industry rose to the occasion,” Caring CEO Jim Rosenthal said. “We applaud the Caring Stars of 2022 and other senior living communities nationwide for earning such high praise from their customers in online ratings and reviews during this time.”
The best senior living communities list for 2022 increased more than 280% compared with last year’s list, which featured 156 communities. Caring said that the COVID-19 pandemic drew more attention to senior living and boosted consumers’ use of the internet. Company representatives said they saw an increase in consumers willing to share their service-related reviews online: they published 58% more reviews per month, on average in 2021, than in 2019 (for January through October). Most communities saw increased positive feedback about their services based on the steps they took to protect resident safety and well-being, according to Caring. The return to in-person tours also contributed to improved experiences and more positive reviews, the company said.
The operators with the most communities on this year’s list are Atria (38), Holiday (37), Senior Village Management (28), Pacifica Senior Living (26), Life Care Services (19), Brookdale Senior Living (18), Sonida Senior Living (formerly Capital Senior Living) (12), Sunrise Senior Living (11), and Integral Senior Living/Solstice Senior Living (8).
Fifty-six communities of small-business organizations (typically, those with five or fewer communities) also are represented among the winners.
Additionally, 122 communities across 30 states have been named “Caring Super Stars” for having earned Caring Star awards in three or more years since the program’s inception in 2012. That number includes 18 communities of small-business organizations.
Just as with the lists issued in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016, three of the states with the highest number of winners this year are California (65 communities this year), Florida (39 communities) and Texas (36 communities). Michigan (30 communities) was close behind this year. California has been in the top five states every year since Caring launched Caring Stars in 2012.
See the whole 2022 list here.
