For home owners
How do I build a referral network for my home instead of depending on one placement agent?
. By Erika Crossley, AI Perfect Fit Senior Living Placement, Houston.
Build it in layers so no single person controls your move-ins: your HHSC directory listing and Google listing, hospital and rehab discharge planners, home health and hospice agencies, two or three peer homes, and only then placement advisors. Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 121 (2025) sets the rules for advisors: written disclosure to the family, a written referral notice to you with the time and date, and a contract that says when you pay. Nothing in it requires you to use an advisor at all.
Step by step
Layer 1: be findable on the state's list and on the map
HHSC publishes a spreadsheet of every licensed home with license number, type, licensed capacity, Alzheimer's certification, phone and administrator. Discharge planners and advisors filter it by county. Check your row today: wrong phone, wrong administrator, or an expired certificate means the call never comes. Then claim the Google listing with the same name and phone, because the family that was given your name searches it before dialing.
Layer 2: discharge planners at the two hospitals and the rehab nearest you
A planner has minutes to place someone and will send the family to the home she can verify in one search and reach on the first call. Give her one page: license number and type, beds open today, what you can take (Type B, two-person assist, oxygen, memory loss, behaviors), your private-pay range, and the one cell number that always answers. Update it the day a bed opens. This is the highest-value relationship in the business and it is built on reliability, not lunch.
Layer 3: home health and hospice agencies that already serve your residents
The nurses coming into your home see families every week who are about to need you. Ask the agency owner for a standing visit to your home, keep a short list of agencies you refer back to, and never pay or accept a fee for a resident covered by Medicare or Medicaid; Chapter 121 itself bars referral compensation that federal anti-kickback law prohibits.
Layer 4: two or three peer homes that take what you cannot
When your beds are full or a case is wrong for your house, send the family to a peer and ask the same of them. Chapter 121 does not treat a home or its employees as a referral agency, so homes trading referrals with each other are not under its disclosure rules. A resident's family member or a patron who refers people to you is also excluded, even if you give them a discount.
Layer 5: placement advisors, on paper, on your terms
Chapter 121 took effect June 20, 2025. Section 121.002(d) says a community may not be required to contract with or use a referral agency. If you do, Section 121.004(5) requires the advisor to notify you in writing, with the time and date of the referral, on or before the day the resident is admitted; Section 121.004(6) says the contract must state the period in which you pay, no longer than three years after the referral; and Section 121.003(5) bars collecting a fee after the referral expires under that contract. Section 121.004(3) requires the advisor to audit your license and keep a record. Put the fee, the expiration and the notice rule in one page and sign only that.
Measure the layers
Keep one sheet: every call, where it came from, whether it toured, whether it moved in. In three months you will know which layer fills beds. The point of the network is that when any one source goes quiet, the others do not.
Sourced facts
Every law, fee and coverage statement above rests on one of these government pages, read on October 7, 2026. Anything marked ESTIMATE on this page is not from a government source and is labeled where it appears.
- HHSC's licensed directory columns include license number, type, capacity, Alzheimer's certificate, phone and administrator. Source: Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Licensed Assisted Living Facility Directory (spreadsheet).
- A referral agency is an entity paid a fee by a consumer or community for referrals; a community, its employees, and a resident's family member or patron who refers people are not referral agencies. Source: Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session, enrolled bill text, Senate Bill 1383 (2025), adding Business and Commerce Code Chapter 121, Referral Agencies for Senior Living Communities.
- A community may not be required to use a referral agency; written referral notice with time and date is due on or before admission; contracts must state a payment period of no more than three years; no fee after a referral expires; the agency must audit the home's license; no compensation federal anti-kickback law prohibits. Source: Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session, enrolled bill text, Senate Bill 1383 (2025), adding Business and Commerce Code Chapter 121, Referral Agencies for Senior Living Communities.
- Chapter 121 as codified in the Business and Commerce Code. Source: Texas Legislature, Business and Commerce Code, Business and Commerce Code Chapter 121, Referral Agencies for Senior Living Communities (codified).
3 government sources cited on this page.
Questions people ask next
Does Chapter 121 say how much a placement fee can be?
No. Section 121.005 lets a written contract set compensation and even base it on the volume or value of referrals. The amount is whatever you sign. The law sets the paperwork, the notice, the license audit and the time limit, not the price.
Can an advisor bill me for a resident who moves from my home to my second home?
Section 121.003(4) bars a referral fee when a consumer transfers from one property of a senior living community to another property of the same community, unless the family engaged the advisor for that transfer and was given more than one referral.
Can I pay a resident's daughter a discount for sending me a new family?
Chapter 121 excludes a resident, a resident's family member, or a patron who refers a consumer to the community from the definition of referral agency, regardless of any discount or other remuneration. The disclosure and notice duties do not attach to her. Other laws may still apply, so this is not legal advice.
What must an advisor hand the family?
A written disclosure at the time of referral that describes the service, says whether the family or the community pays the fee, says the family can stop at any time without cause or penalty, and says the list may not include every community that fits. If an advisor sends you a family without having done that, you are working with someone operating outside the law.
From Erika
I am one of the layers, not the whole network, and I want you to have the others too. When you list your home with me, every referral you get is already matched to your license and your open beds, with the Chapter 121 notice in writing, and the family never pays me. I am not a lawyer and I do not run a home, so none of this is legal advice; it is what the state's own pages say, linked so you can read them yourself.