Methodology
Every number, date, and label on Find That Home Health Agency comes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ public Provider Data Catalog (data.cms.gov) — the same data behind medicare.gov’s Care Compare. We never invent, estimate, or “fix” a value. When CMS doesn’t report something, we say “Not reported” — or show CMS’s own stated reason for the blank. Even the state and national comparison numbers are CMS’s published averages, not our own calculations.
The datasets
- Home Health Care Agencies (6jpm-sxkc): The spine: one row per agency — quality-of-patient-care star, OASIS outcome measures, claims-based hospitalization measures, services offered, ownership type.
- Patient Survey (HHCAHPS), provider level (ccn4-8vby): Patient-experience star ratings and survey percentages per agency, plus the number of completed surveys and response rate.
- State by State Data (tee5-ixt5): CMS's own state averages for the star rating and every quality measure — the "vs your state" numbers.
- National Data (97z8-de96): CMS's national averages, star-rating distribution, and national observed rates for the claims-based measures.
- Patient Survey (HHCAHPS), state level (m5jg-jg7i): CMS's state averages for the patient-survey percentages.
- Patient Survey (HHCAHPS), national level (vxub-6swi): CMS's national averages for the patient-survey percentages.
CMS refreshes home-health data roughly quarterly; this site rebuilds from the latest files. Current data last updated: March 5, 2026 · patient-survey collection period: 2024Q4 to 2025Q3. CMS data itself lags reality — measures reflect past quarters of care, not this week’s.
What each rating means
The Quality of Patient Care star
Medicare scores every certified home health agency from 1 to 5 stars (in half-star steps) on the quality of patient care. It's built from clinical measures: how often patients got better at walking, bathing, and taking their medicines, how quickly care started, and how often patients ended up in the hospital. The data comes from OASIS — the standardized assessment a nurse or therapist fills out at the start and end of care — plus Medicare claims. Five stars means results much better than average, not perfect; a low star means results below average, not that every visit goes badly. Stars can lag reality by months, and they can't measure whether the aide who comes on Tuesdays is kind.
What to do with this: use the star to build a shortlist, then interview the agency like you'd interview anyone coming into your home.
The Patient Survey star
After care ends, a sample of each agency's patients gets a standardized survey (called HHCAHPS) asking how the experience really was: did the team act professionally, did they communicate well, did they explain medicines and safety, would you recommend them. Those answers become a separate 1–5 star rating. This star measures experience, not clinical results — an agency can heal wounds well but communicate poorly, or the reverse. Survey scores also depend on how many patients answered: with few surveys, one unhappy family can move the number a lot.
What to do with this: read it next to the number of completed surveys shown below it. A star built on 30 surveys is a hint; one built on 300 is a pattern.
Why the two stars differ
The Quality of Patient Care star comes from clinical data: assessments and Medicare claims about whether patients improved. The Patient Survey star comes from questionnaires filled out by patients and families about how the care felt. They are calculated separately, from different sources, and they often disagree. That disagreement is information: strong clinical star with a weak survey star can mean effective care that communicates badly; the reverse can mean a well-liked team whose patients improve more slowly than average.
What to do with this: when the two stars disagree, ask the agency about the weaker one — the answer will tell you a lot.
Timely start of care
When a doctor orders home health, the clock matters: the first days after a hospital discharge are when things go wrong. This measure tracks how often the agency started care within the expected window. On the ground, a late start means a wound unchecked, medicines unreconciled, and a family alone with a hospital bed and no instructions. It's one of the most practical numbers on this page.
What to do with this: ask exactly how many days after referral the first visit will happen, and who to call if nobody shows.
The 'got better' measures
These come from OASIS, the standardized assessment done at the start and end of care: a clinician scores what the patient could do on day one and again at discharge. 'Got better at walking' means the discharge score improved over the start score. These are the core of home health — the whole point is recovering function at home. Two honest caveats: the same agency staff fill out the assessments (CMS audits, but it's partly self-scored), and agencies serving sicker or more complex patients can have lower improvement rates without giving worse care.
What to do with this: compare each rate to the state and national averages shown, and ask the agency how they set goals for someone like your person.
What OASIS is
OASIS (Outcome and Assessment Information Set) is a federally required assessment: a nurse or therapist scores the patient's condition — mobility, self-care, breathing, medications, wounds — when care begins, and again when it ends. Comparing the two is how CMS knows whether patients improved. It's filled out by the agency's own staff, which is why CMS pairs it with claims-based measures that agencies can't self-report.
What to do with this: nothing to act on — it's the plumbing behind the numbers. Just know 'got better' means 'improved between two OASIS assessments.'
Risk-standardized hospital measures
Some patients are far more likely to end up in the hospital than others, no matter how good the care is. So for these measures CMS adjusts each agency's rate for its patient mix, then compares it to the national rate and labels it better, same, or worse than the national rate. These come from Medicare claims, not self-reported assessments — which makes them hard to game. A 'worse than national' label means that even after accounting for sicker patients, more of this agency's patients ended up in the hospital than expected.
What to do with this: weight these labels heavily — they're claims-based and risk-adjusted. Ask any agency how they respond when a patient starts declining at home.
The Discharge Function Score
For each patient, CMS estimates the level of self-care and mobility they'd be expected to reach by discharge, given their condition. This score is the share of patients who met or beat that expectation. It's a fairer version of 'did people get better' because the bar is set per patient — an agency isn't penalized for taking on harder cases.
What to do with this: treat it as the summary of the recovery measures, and compare it to the state and national averages shown.
Falls with major injury
Falls are the fastest way a recovery at home turns into a hospital stay. This measure counts falls that caused a major injury — a break, a head injury — while the patient was under the agency's care. The rates look small (a few percent or less), but every point is someone's parent on the floor. Good agencies work on this constantly: clearing walkways, checking medications that cause dizziness, teaching safe transfers.
What to do with this: ask what the agency does on the first visit to make the home safer, and who reassesses fall risk when medicines change.
Survey sample sizes
The patient survey is sent to a sample of each agency's patients, and not everyone responds. CMS reports both the number of completed surveys and the response rate. Fewer than about 100 completed surveys means individual experiences can swing the percentages noticeably; CMS itself flags agencies under 70 completed surveys and tells readers to use those scores with caution. A low response rate doesn't make an agency bad — small agencies simply have fewer patients to ask.
What to do with this: check the survey count before trusting a percentage. Small sample, softer conclusion.
Services offered
Medicare-certified home health can include six services: skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, medical social services, and home health aides. Agencies differ — some are therapy-heavy, some nursing-only. If the doctor's orders include physical therapy and the agency doesn't offer it, they'll have to arrange it through someone else, which adds handoffs. This list is what the agency is certified to provide, not a promise about scheduling or availability in your area.
What to do with this: match the chips against the doctor's orders, and ask how anything missing would be covered.
Ownership types
CMS records each agency's control type. Most US home health agencies are proprietary — for-profit businesses. Nonprofits (including faith-affiliated and visiting-nurse associations) and government-operated agencies (often county health departments) are less common. Ownership type sets incentives, not destiny: there are excellent and poor agencies in every category, and the measures on this page are the better guide to any single agency.
What to do with this: note it, then judge the agency on its numbers and your conversation with them — not the label.
Medicare certification
Every agency on this site is certified by Medicare, which requires meeting federal conditions of participation and periodic review. Certification is a floor, not a rating — it means the agency is allowed to operate and bill Medicare, not that it performs well. The certification date shows how long the agency has been in the program; new agencies often show 'not enough data' on measures for their first months.
What to do with this: treat certification as the entry ticket. The stars and measures above it are how you compare.
Why a value can be blank (CMS footnotes)
When CMS suppresses or omits a value, it publishes a footnote. We show the meaning in place of the blank. The agency-level quality file carries these as full sentences shown verbatim; the patient-survey file uses numbered codes from the official HHQRP Data Dictionary (Table 14):
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | This agency provides services under a federal waiver program to non-traditional, chronic long term population. |
| 2 | This agency provides services to a special needs population. |
| 3 | Not Available. |
| 4 | The number of patient episodes for this measure is too small to report. |
| 5 | This measure currently does not have data or provider has been certified/recertified for less than 6 months. |
| 6 | The national average for this measure is not provided because of state-to-state differences in data collection. |
| 7 | Medicare is not displaying rates for this measure for any home health agency, because of an issue with the data. |
| 8 | There were problems with the data and they are being corrected. |
| 9 | Zero, or very few, patients met the survey's rules for inclusion. The scores shown, if any, reflect a very small number of surveys and may not accurately tell how an agency is doing. |
| 10 | Survey results are based on less than 12 months of data. |
| 11 | Fewer than 70 patients completed the survey. Use the scores shown, if any, with caution as the number of surveys may be too low to accurately tell how an agency is doing. |
| 12 | No survey results are available for this period. |
| 13 | Data suppressed by CMS for one or more quarters. |
What this data can’t tell you
- There is no public inspection, complaint, or violations file for home health agencies.CMS publishes inspection deficiencies and penalties for nursing homes — it publishes nothing like that for home health in its provider-data catalog. A page here showing no problems does NOT mean a clean record; it means public data of that kind doesn’t exist. State health departments license and inspect home health agencies — contact yours for inspection history.
- The two star ratings measure different things— clinical outcomes vs. patient experience — and are never blended into one number here, because CMS doesn’t blend them either.
- Most outcome measures are drawn from OASIS assessments completed by the agency’s own clinicians (CMS audits them, and pairs them with claims-based measures that can’t be self-reported).
- Survey percentages depend on sample size. CMS flags agencies with fewer than 70 completed surveys; we show the count and the flag wherever it applies.
- Data lags reality. A staffing change or new management may not be reflected for quarters. Verify anything important directly with the agency and at medicare.gov/care-compare.
- Numbers can’t see kindness. Nothing here replaces meeting the people who would walk into your home.
Attribution
Data: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (data.cms.gov), public domain, last updated March 5, 2026. Find That Home Health Agency is not affiliated with CMS, Medicare, or any government agency. Found an error? Suggest a correction.