How we compile CMS senior-care ratings and directories
We build a state-by-state directory of CMS-rated senior-care providers from official U.S. government data, and we are careful about what those ratings mean. This page explains how, what we deliberately do not do, and why everything here is informational, not advice.
Who’s behind this site
Senior Care by State is an independent publisher operated by VentureCorp, Inc. We are not a care provider, a referral agency, a government body, or a medical or financial advisor, and we do not accept payment to change a rating or a facility's position in our directory. The site answers one question from official data: what CMS-rated senior-care facilities are there in a given state, and how do they score?
Where our data comes from
| Data | Source | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing-home Five-Star ratings, ownership & beds | CMS Care Compare — Nursing Home Provider Information (Five-Star Quality), data.cms.gov (public domain) | Every facility, state and ownership page |
| Home-health agencies | CMS Care Compare — Home Health Care Agencies, data.cms.gov (public domain) | The data study and counts |
| What the rating means & its limits | CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System Technical Users' Guide | How we frame every rating |
YMYL discipline. This is elder care, so we publish only official CMS figures, each shown as the rating as of its vintage, never as a recommendation, guarantee, or medical/financial/legal advice. The CMS Five-Star score is a relative quality measure with documented limits (see the Technical Users' Guide). The data carries no cost, no care-level taxonomy, and no Medicaid-eligibility rules — we never invent them. Every facility links to its live Medicare Care Compare profile.
How we calculate
We pull the monthly CMS Provider Information file (the vintage is in the filename), keep each facility's official overall, health-inspection and staffing stars, ownership and certified beds, and group by state and by ownership. State averages and ownership mixes are summed straight from the facility rows. Home-health agencies come from the companion CMS file. We re-pull monthly and re-stamp the vintage before any page re-ships; we compute no rating of our own.
What we deliberately leave out. We give no medical, financial, or legal advice, make no recommendation, and name no single “best” facility. We publish no cost or price (it isn't in the data), no care-level taxonomy, and no Medicaid-eligibility determination — those require professional, situation-specific guidance we don't provide.
Independence & how we make money
Some links on this site may be affiliate links to vetted senior-living services; if you act on one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Partners never see or influence a facility's CMS rating or its position in our directory, and no placement is for sale — non-negotiable for a health category.
Keeping it current
CMS re-releases the Provider Information file monthly, so we re-pull and re-verify the vintage each cycle. Current CMS vintage: May2026; current verification: June 2026. For any real decision, confirm the current figures on the facility's live Medicare Care Compare profile and involve the resident and their clinicians.
Corrections
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