About NursingHomeGrade
The dominant nursing home referral services earn commissions from the facilities they recommend —
as much as $3,500 per family placed. In May 2024, the Washington Post and a Senate investigation
documented how this creates incentives to hide violation records.
NursingHomeGrade does not take payments from nursing facilities. We surface the same CMS data that's publicly available, organized and scored in a way that's actually useful.
How we grade facilities
The NursingHomeGrade Score (0–100) is a weighted composite of four CMS data points:
Staffing compliance (35%)
RN hours vs federal minimum of 0.55
Inspection clean rate (30%)
Health inspection deficiencies & severity
Quality measures (20%)
CMS quality star rating
Staffing consistency (15%)
CMS staffing star rating
Data source
All data comes from CMS Nursing Home Compare, a public dataset updated monthly by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We apply no editorial adjustments.
Business model
We display contextual advertising and earn small referral fees when users click through to comparison services. We never receive payments from nursing facilities. If that ever changes, we'll disclose it prominently.