A few weeks ago, the government rolled out a revised and simpler, “five star” quality rating system approach to how it evaluates nursing homes and provides a simpler search for families looking to do research on nursing homes. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) site, Nursing Home Compare, provides rating on nursing homes from 1 to 5 stars. Each facility is rated overall and in three separate areas: 10 qualitative measurements, results of health inspections and the adequacy of staffing of the facility.

The system has been both criticized and praised by different groups ranging from lawyers, senior advocates and the nursing home industry, all of who are concerned for the system’s accuracy and reliability. Many operators are unhappy about how their facilities are portrayed and think that a numeric system does not adequately reflect the quality of their facilities and that the ratings provide a limited evaluation. Either way, the site upgrade is certainly better than it was before.

For the main page, click here.

To search the database, click here.