About
Data as of , released by CMS on October 8, 2026. Source: CMS Provider Data Catalog.
Where the data comes from
Every figure on this site derives from the Health Deficiencies file published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its public Provider Data Catalog. The current load covers 418,947 citations. We do not add to, edit, or reinterpret the underlying records.
CMS republishes that file monthly, and it carries roughly the three most recent inspection cycles per facility. Older findings, and the inspectors’ written text, come from CMS’s quarterly Statement of Deficiencies downloads, which reach back to 2008. Hospice and home health findings come from CMS’s QCOR reports.
How to read the numbers
- Whole record and current file. On a nursing-home page the summary and the chart at the top cover every finding on record. The severity grid, the most-cited list and the recent surveys table cover CMS’s current monthly file, about the last three inspection cycles.
- Findings in full. A nursing home’s findings page carries every finding at actual harm or above, at any date, and the most recent of the rest. Hospice and home health pages carry every finding CMS publishes text for.
- The inspector’s words are unedited. Line breaks are normalised and CMS’s confidentiality header is removed. Missing spaces and run-on sentences are in CMS’s published text and are left as issued. CMS redacts names and some dates before publication.
- Immediate jeopardy. The severity letter is what the surveyor wrote. Some of those findings had already been corrected before the survey, and CMS scores them lower. Where CMS publishes that status, the page says so.
- Peer comparison. Findings are weighted with CMS’s published scope-and-severity points and compared with facilities in the same state, of similar size and ownership. It is shown as a quartile because a finer position moves too much between periods to mean anything.
- State comparisons. A state’s citations are measured against its own expected share of national citations, never against another state. The share of findings at actual harm or above is comparable between states, because the A–L definitions are federal.
- Tags cited together. Tags that appear in the same inspection reflect how surveys are conducted. One does not cause the other.
- Hospice and home health. These programmes are not graded on the A–L scale. Condition, Standard and Element are compliance grades and say nothing about harm. CMS lists only providers with at least one deficiency, and for some hospice findings it publishes no written text.
What this does not show
- Not a quality rating. A citation records what a surveyor observed on one visit. It is not a score, and this site does not rank facilities against each other.
- Not comparable between states. CMS says in its own Five-Star methodology that citation counts cannot be compared across states, because they reflect how aggressively each state surveys as much as how its facilities perform. Every comparison here comes with that caveat attached. Harm level (the A–L scale) is the exception — those definitions are federal and applied uniformly.
- Clean surveys are not shown. A survey that found no deficiencies does not appear in CMS’s files at all, so a facility whose last survey was clean can look as though it has gone longer without one than it has.
- Federal survey findings only. These are deficiencies cited against federal Medicare and Medicaid requirements, recorded on form CMS-2567. Each state also licenses and inspects facilities under its own law, and those findings are not published here. A facility with nothing on this page may still have a state licensure history.
- Not a trend. Comparing citation counts across survey years in this file measures CMS’s retention policy rather than real change, because each year contains a different mix of facilities. Where we show recent years, we show shares over a short window and say so. Figures are for 2025 unless stated.
Terms of use
This site is provided as-is, for information only. It is not legal, regulatory, clinical, or compliance advice, and it should not be relied on as the sole basis for any decision about a facility, a resident, or a placement.
The underlying records are U.S. government works and are not subject to copyright. Our analysis, wording and presentation are ours; quote and link freely, with attribution.
We make no warranty that figures are complete or free of error. If you believe something is wrong, tell us — that route exists precisely because we name real facilities from public records.
Deficiency Index is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by CMS, Medicare, or any government agency. About this data · Report a correction