Under OAC 3701-16-07(F)(5), a Residential Care Facility that operates a special care unit, as defined in OAC 3701-16-01(LL), must provide a written disclosure covering admission and discharge criteria, staffing, staff training, programming, additional costs, and the unit's physical design. This is a paperwork disclosure requirement, not a state inspection, survey, or certification; Ohio has no separate memory care license or certification comparable to some other states.
What this means in practice
Families touring memory care in Cuyahoga or Lake County sometimes assume a "certified" or "licensed" memory care unit has passed some additional state review beyond ordinary RCF licensing. In Ohio, that assumption doesn't hold up.
What does exist is a disclosure requirement: a facility running a special care unit must hand over, in writing, details on staffing levels, staff dementia training, programming, the physical design of the unit, and any added fees, either before admission or whenever a family asks.
Because there's no state certification lookup for memory care quality, the disclosure document and a family's own on-site questions about staff turnover, secured egress, and daily programming become the real verification tools, not a license number.
Related questions
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