California Nursing Home Quality Lookup
Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) official Five-Star ratings — the government's own report card for every certified nursing home: overall stars, health inspections, staffing, and quality measures, plus fines and violation records. Before you choose a nursing home, check its record here first.
Coverage: all 1,165 Medicare / Medicaid-certified skilled nursing facilities in California. Assisted living communities and memory-care residences fall outside the CMS rating system and are not listed here.
Facility names are their official English registered names. If you don't know the name, searching by city or ZIP code works best; use the quick area links below for popular regions.
All California
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Try lowering the star requirement, clearing the red-flag filter, or searching a different city or ZIP code.
Side-by-side comparison
Best value in each row is highlighted in greenHow to read the CMS Five-Star ratings
The overall rating combines three components with unequal weight: health inspections count the most, staffing next, then quality measures. A home rated 4 stars overall but only 2 stars on health inspections often looks good on paper while struggling on site — look closely.
Health inspections
State inspectors arrive unannounced and score the facility on the number and severity of deficiencies across its last three inspection cycles (more recent cycles weigh more). Deficiencies cover infection control, medication errors, fall prevention, fire safety and more — the best window into day-to-day management.
Staffing
Calculated from actual hours reported through the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ): how many nursing hours each resident receives per day, how many of those come from registered nurses (RNs), plus nursing staff turnover. Reported hours can't be faked, making this the most reliable component.
Quality measures
Drawn from resident assessments and Medicare claims: pressure ulcers, falls with major injury, unplanned hospital readmissions, ER visits and similar outcome measures. Reported separately for long-stay residents and short-stay rehab patients — check the set that matches your family member.
Red flags: walk away if you see these
- Abuse icon: a substantiated incident of abuse, neglect, or exploitation in the past two years
- Listed as a Special Focus Facility (SFF) or candidate: persistently poor quality under government watch
- 1 star overall, and 1 star on health inspections as well
- Repeated fines in the past three years, or a denial of payment for new Medicare admissions
- Total nursing turnover above 60%: constant staff churn makes stable care impossible
- Deficiencies in the latest cycle far above the California average (15.5)