Methodology and sources

Nursing Home Record exists to make public nursing home records easier to find and read. We do not collect our own data, and we do not rate or rank facilities. Everything we publish comes from records published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), reproduced as published. This page lists every dataset we use, where it comes from, how often it refreshes, and the rules we hold ourselves to.

Datasets we use

These four files are published by CMS through its provider-data service at data.cms.gov. Each one carries a stable CMS dataset id, shown below, and all four refresh on the same monthly cycle. The release we currently publish is the one CMS dated 2026-08-01.

• Provider Information (CMS dataset id 4pq5-n9py, refreshed monthly). One row per Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home: identifying details, CMS Five-Star ratings, reported staffing hours per resident per day, staff turnover, bed counts, ownership type, and chain membership.
• Health Deficiencies (CMS dataset id r5ix-sfxw, refreshed monthly). The health citations state survey inspectors recorded during on-site inspections, with the scope and severity code and the survey date CMS assigns to each one.
• Penalties (CMS dataset id g6vv-u9sr, refreshed monthly). Civil money penalties and payment denials CMS recorded against a facility, with the date and amount as CMS publishes them.
• Ownership (CMS dataset id y2hd-n93e, refreshed monthly). The owners, operators, and managing entities CMS associates with each facility, with the role and the association date.

The CMS Certification Number (CCN) is the key that joins all four files, so a facility’s ratings, citations, penalties, and ownership come from the same identifier CMS uses. You can view the same records on Medicare Care Compare.

Where we explain what a rating measures rather than reproduce a value, the source is CMS’s own documentation: the Five-Star Quality Rating System program page and its technical users’ guide (PDF).

Our cost guide does not publish dollar figures. Where it describes what national cost surveys consistently show, the survey it refers to is the Genworth Cost of Care Survey, published annually. Coverage rules on that page come from Medicare’s own coverage pages.

Refresh cadence

CMS updates the four provider-data files on a monthly cycle. We resolve the current files from the CMS metastore on each refresh rather than hardcoding a file address, validate that the field set CMS returns still matches what we expect, and stamp what we publish with the “data as of” date CMS assigns to the release. The data currently referenced is as of 2026-08-01. Because the records change every month, a figure you see today may differ from what CMS publishes next month; the stamp tells you which release it reflects.

Sources we plan to add

Nothing in this list is used on the site today. These are public records we have verified and intend to add. When one of them goes live, it moves into the list above and this page is dated again.

• CMS Special Focus Facility list. The monthly posting of facilities in the Special Focus Facility program and the candidates for it. Published as a PDF on the CMS Nursing Homes page, and mirrored as a special focus status field in Provider Information.
• CMS Payroll-Based Journal daily nurse staffing. Daily nurse staffing hours reported from facility payroll systems, published quarterly. The source behind the staffing rating.
• CMS State US Averages (dataset xcdc-v8bm). State and national averages CMS publishes for the same measures it publishes per facility, so a facility figure can sit next to the state figure CMS reports.
• CMS Fire Safety Deficiencies (dataset ifjz-ge4w). Life safety code citations from the fire safety portion of the same inspections, kept separate from health citations by CMS.
• Full inspection reports (Form CMS-2567). The inspector narrative behind a citation, available through Medicare Care Compare and through state survey portals such as the Texas HHS Long-Term Care Provider Search and the Florida AHCA facility locator.
• HHS OIG list of excluded individuals and entities. People and organizations excluded from federal health care programs. Relevant to the ownership record.
• Medicare cost reports (HCRIS). The annual financial reports certified facilities file with CMS, including the skilled nursing facility cost report.

Sources we do not use

We do not use user reviews or ratings, news coverage of allegations, third-party scores derived from the public data, or court filings other than published orders. Each of those is either an opinion, an unproven claim, or someone else’s calculation, and none of them is the public record this site exists to reproduce.

Verbatim reporting

We reproduce CMS records as published. We do not summarize a facility’s record in our own words, we do not characterize a facility as good or bad, and we do not build our own rankings. The only ratings on this site are the CMS Five-Star ratings, shown as CMS assigns them. We do not compute our own versions of figures CMS already publishes. Where a value is blank in the CMS file, we show that it is not available rather than filling it in. The aim is simple: show the number, cite the source, and let you judge.

Corrections

Our pages mirror the CMS record. If a figure looks wrong, the underlying record at CMS is the place it needs to be fixed, and we explain how to pursue that on our corrections page. If we have made a reproduction error, so that our page does not match the current CMS record, we want to know and will fix it. You can reach us at corrections@nursinghomerecord.com, and our corrections and takedown policy describes the process and our response commitment.