For Medicare-certified home health agencies, CMS publishes a quality-of-patient-care star rating and a set of patient-care measures through its Care Compare program. SeniorCareRating.com shows these exactly as CMS reports them. Here is what they mean — and what it means when they are missing.
Key points
✓The quality-of-patient-care star rating runs from 1 to 5 stars; many agencies are not rated.
✓It summarizes several patient-outcome and process measures, not patient surveys.
✓A missing rating is not a bad rating — it usually means the agency was too small to report reliably.
The quality-of-patient-care star rating
CMS calculates a single 1-to-5 star rating from a group of measures that track how often patients improved (for example, at walking, bathing, or getting in and out of bed) and whether the agency followed recommended care processes on time.
It is a summary of past performance on those measures. It is not a judgment about the care a specific patient will receive, and it does not include patient satisfaction surveys — that is a separate CMS dataset this site does not currently include.
The individual measures
Beyond the single star, CMS reports individual measures grouped into a few kinds: outcome measures (did patients get better), safety measures (such as falls with major injury or pressure sores), timeliness and process measures (such as starting care promptly), and hospitalization measures (potentially preventable hospital visits). Each is shown as a percentage or rate with the number of patients or episodes it was calculated from.
For each measure, a higher or lower number is better depending on what it tracks — improving at walking is better higher; falls with major injury is better lower. SeniorCareRating.com labels the direction on each measure.
What a missing rating or measure means
Roughly a quarter of agencies have no star rating and no reported measures. CMS suppresses a measure when the number of patient episodes is too small to report reliably, or when an agency has been certified for less than six months. This site shows CMS's own explanation instead of a blank — and never shows missing data as a zero.
A missing rating therefore tells you the agency is small or new, not that it is low quality. For those agencies, compare nearby agencies and verify current details with CMS.
Frequently asked questions
Is the home health star rating the same as the nursing home rating?▾
No. They come from different CMS datasets with different measures. A home health quality-of-patient-care star rating is not comparable to a nursing home overall rating.
Does the rating include patient satisfaction?▾
No. The quality-of-patient-care star rating is based on outcome and process measures. CMS publishes patient survey (HHCAHPS) results in a separate dataset that this site does not currently include, so no patient-survey ratings are shown.
Why do some agencies have no rating?▾
CMS suppresses ratings and measures when there are too few patient episodes to report reliably, or when an agency is newly certified. A missing rating is not a low rating.
Verify with official sources
SeniorCareRating.com organizes public CMS data and is not affiliated with CMS or any facility. Confirm current details on the official CMS Care Compare site and with the facility before making decisions.
SeniorCareRating.com summarizes public CMS data. It is not affiliated with CMS, Medicare.gov, or any nursing home. Data may lag current conditions. This is not medical, legal, or care-placement advice — always verify with official sources and qualified professionals.
