Nursing home tools
Free, no-sign-up tools that let you work directly with CMS nursing-home quality data: compare states side by side, or look up any of the 14,690 certified facilities' full records. Download the matching national aggregates as CSV (wired into this page's Dataset JSON-LD).
- 14,690
- Certified facilities
- 53
- States & territories
- 3.0 / 5
- Average CMS overall rating
- $456.8M
- Federal fines on record
The tools in one line
Two live CMS readers sit on this hub: compare any U.S. states side by side, or look up any of 14,690 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities. The national average overall rating in this extract is 3.0 of 5 across 14,563 rated homes (August 2026).
- 14,690
- Certified facilities
- 53
- States & territories
- 3.0 / 5
- Average CMS overall rating
- $456.8M
- Federal fines on record
Every figure is read from the CMS Nursing Home Compare files at request time. Star ratings are force-curved within each state.
The national picture
Where all 14,563 rated U.S. nursing homes fall on the CMS 1–5 star scale, the curve every tool below works against.
U.S. nursing homes by CMS overall star rating
National average vs the 5-star ceiling
Mean CMS overall rating across 14,563 rated homes is 3.0 of 5, against the 5.0 ceiling of the scale.
How complete is the data?
Every tool here works from the official CMS records. At least 97.3% of the 14,690 certified facilities carry each independently-verifiable data layer, so a lookup rarely comes back empty (August 2026):
Share of U.S. certified nursing homes with each CMS data layer on record
Interactive tools
- Compare Nursing Care by State Pick any U.S. states and compare nursing-home quality side by side, CMS overall, health, staffing and quality star ratings, nurse hours, turnover and share of 5-star homes, with a shareable link.
- Search Nursing Homes Look up any of the 14,690 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities by name, city, ZIP, or county, then open its full CMS record, ratings, staffing, deficiencies, and penalties.
Ranked data explorers
Curated views of the same CMS dataset, ranked and grouped so you can start from a shortlist instead of a blank search box.
- Best-rated nursing homes Five-star facilities, ranked.
- Lowest-rated nursing homes One- and two-star facilities to scrutinize.
- Most-penalized nursing homes Facilities by federal civil money penalties.
- States by average rating How each state compares on CMS stars.
- Browse by state Every state, with its facilities and averages.
About these tools
Every figure these tools display is read live from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Nursing Home Compare program, the Provider Information, Health Deficiencies, MDS Quality Measures, and Penalties files, published quarterly at data.cms.gov. PlainNursing refreshes within 30 days of each release and does not alter the underlying records. CMS overall star ratings are force-curved within each state, so they are best read against in-state peers; see our methodology for the full sourcing and computation detail.
What these tools read
Both tools query the same CMS Nursing Home Compare extract this site publishes (August 2026).
- Compare-by-state reads live CMS overall, health, staffing, and quality averages for the states you pick. Compare states
- Search looks up any of the 14,690 certified facilities by name, city, ZIP, or county. Search homes
- The ranked explorers on this hub are the same extract sorted by star rating, fines, or state average. Best-rated list
CMS refreshes the underlying Provider Information, deficiencies, and penalties files quarterly; figures here match this extract.