The questions families ask in the week they have to decide — answered from official rules and public records, with no facility paying to appear.
Medicare's Care Compare gives every nursing home a star rating. Here is what those stars are built from, the four blind spots families hit, and how to compare facilities on the records behind the rating.
The practical differences between assisted living and a nursing home: level of care, who pays, who inspects them, and how to tell which one a parent actually needs.
Medicare covers skilled nursing care for a limited time after a qualifying hospital stay — and never covers long-term custodial care. Here is exactly what is covered, for how long, and what happens on day 101.
Medicaid is the largest payer of nursing home care in the US. How eligibility works, what the five-year lookback actually penalizes, and the rules that protect a spouse who stays at home.
Nursing home costs vary by a factor of three across states. What the daily rate includes, what gets billed on top, how Medicare and Medicaid fit, and how to compare a quote against the facility's record.
Memory care typically costs 20-30% more than standard assisted living. What the surcharge pays for, how pricing tiers work, and the questions that reveal whether a secured unit is actually specialized.
Medicaid rarely pays assisted living room and board — but most states cover the care services through waiver programs. How waivers work, why waiting lists exist, and how to find participating facilities.
Every nursing home inspection citation in the US is public. How to find them, how to read severity codes, and which patterns actually predict problems.
Palliative care and hospice both treat symptoms rather than the disease — but one runs alongside curative treatment and the other replaces it. What each covers, who qualifies, and how the Medicare rules differ.
Most hospice care is delivered in the patient's own home. What the team does, how often they visit, who comes at 3am, what the family is still expected to do, and what Medicare does and does not pay for.
Medicare pays for home health care only when two conditions are both met — homebound status and a need for skilled care. What qualifies, what is explicitly excluded, and how to check whether an agency is certified.
The Medicare hospice benefit is one of the most comprehensive in the programme — and has one large exclusion that catches most families. Eligibility, benefit periods, costs, and the room-and-board trap.
CMS publishes how often each hospice discharges patients alive. A high rate can mean patients improved — or that they were enrolled when they should not have been. How to read the number, and where to find it.
Medicare gives home health agencies two separate star ratings that often disagree. What each is built from, why a third of agencies have no rating at all, and what the stars leave out entirely.
An inpatient rehabilitation facility delivers intensive daily therapy under daily physician supervision. A skilled nursing facility delivers less. What separates them, how the choice gets made, and how to compare facilities on the record.
Long-term care hospitals treat patients who need hospital-level care for weeks rather than days — ventilator weaning, complex wounds, multi-system illness. How they differ from rehab and nursing facilities, and how to read their records.
The 525 nursing homes CMS has designated for the worst persistent compliance problems — plus every candidate facility, with ratings and ownership.