Lookup · nursing homes
California nursing home lookup See what inspectors found at your family's facility.
Search any California nursing home that Medicare or Medicaid certifies, by name or city. Each result shows its CMS star ratings, staffing hours, recent inspection citations with dates, fines and payment denials, the abuse icon, and the organizations that own it. A citation is an inspector's finding. It is not proof of abuse or neglect.
Have these ready before you search
- The facility's name, or the city it is inMany facilities go by a shorter name than the one CMS lists. A search by city shows every certified nursing home there, so you can find it in that list.
- The months your family member lived thereEvery citation has an inspection date. Comparing those dates with the time your family member was a resident shows which findings come from that period.
- Whether it is a nursing home or assisted livingThis lookup covers nursing homes certified by Medicare or Medicaid. Assisted living facilities are licensed by the state, not certified by Medicare, so they are not in these files.
After you find the facility
- Write down its CMS Certification NumberThe six-character number identifies the facility in every federal file, even if its name changes. It makes a request for the full inspection reports precise.
- Open its page on Medicare's Care CompareCare Compare is Medicare's own page for the facility, with the same ratings and inspection results. CMS's rating system page also links the full statements of deficiencies, with the inspectors' written findings, which this lookup does not copy.
- Keep your own notes, photographs and messagesWhat you saw on visits, when you saw it, and the names of staff you spoke with can matter as much as any rating. Our guide to nursing home deaths explains the claims that can follow.
- Ask a lawyer to request that records be keptA lawyer can ask the facility in writing to keep the chart, the care plan, incident reports, call light logs, staffing records and any video.
A citation, which CMS calls a deficiency, is an inspector's finding that a nursing home did not meet a federal requirement when it was inspected. It is not proof of abuse or neglect, and it does not say what caused any injury or death. A facility can dispute a citation; disputed citations are marked. The letter beside each citation is CMS's scope and severity code, from its Five-Star technical guide. The lookup shows the data as CMS publishes it and never ranks facilities.
The CMS files cover nursing homes that Medicare or Medicaid certifies and that are open now. A facility that has closed drops out of the files, and assisted living facilities are not in them. Inspection results and complaint findings for certified nursing homes also appear on Medicare's Care Compare. California's Department of Public Health also publishes facility information.
The lookup searches a copy of five files from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Provider Data Catalog, California rows only: Provider Information, Health Deficiencies, Penalties, Ownership and the Citation Code Look-up, described in CMS's data dictionary. We refresh the copy after each monthly CMS release, and its dates are shown with the search. Individual owners are counted, not named; their names are on Care Compare. The lookup does not log your searches. Wise Law is not affiliated with CMS or Medicare, and CMS does not endorse this page. This page is general information, not legal advice.