Guides for families choosing and living with a nursing home
Plain-language answers about visits, costs, residents' rights and how to read a home's public record. Each guide lists its sources, and state rules are shown where they differ.
Visiting and daily lifePaying for careRights and problemsUnderstanding the record
Visiting and daily life
Visits, gifts, outings and moving in.
- Gifts for nursing home residentsPractical gift ideas for a parent, grandparent or friend in a nursing home, what to check with the staff first, and the items most homes ask families not to bring.
- Visiting a loved one in a nursing homeWhen you can visit a nursing home under federal rules, twelve things to do together, how to visit someone living with dementia, and what to notice while you are there.
- Leaving for the day or a holidayYes, a nursing home resident can go out for a meal, a holiday or a family event. Here is how Medicare and Medicaid treat a leave of absence, when a bed-hold fee applies, and how to plan the day.
- What to bring to a nursing homeA packing list for moving into a nursing home or a short rehab stay: clothing, health items, paperwork and comforts from home, plus what the home provides and what to leave behind.
Paying for care
What Medicare and Medicaid cover, and how care settings differ.
- Does Medicare pay for a nursing home?Medicare pays for short-term skilled care in a nursing home, up to 100 days per benefit period: $0 a day for days 1 to 20 and $217 a day for days 21 to 100 in 2026. It does not pay for long-term care.
- How Medicaid pays for a nursing homeMedicaid covers long-term nursing home care for people who meet their state's medical and financial rules. See the 2026 federal figures, what a spouse at home can keep, and how the five-year look-back works.
- Nursing home vs. assisted livingA nursing home provides 24-hour nursing care under federal rules; assisted living provides housing and daily help under state rules. Compare care, 2025 median costs and what Medicare and Medicaid pay.
- Short-term rehab vs. long-term careThe same nursing home can serve two kinds of stay: short-term rehab after a hospital stay, usually paid by Medicare, and long-term care, usually paid privately or by Medicaid. Here is how they differ.
Rights and problems
Residents' rights, complaints and who can help.
- How to file a nursing home complaintWho to call about a problem in a nursing home: the home's own grievance process, your state's long-term care ombudsman, and the state agency that inspects nursing homes. What to write down and what happens next.
- Residents' rights and discharge noticesThe rights federal rules give every resident of a certified nursing home, the six reasons a home may discharge a resident, the 30-day notice rule, and how to appeal a discharge.
- What is a Special Focus Facility?A Special Focus Facility is a nursing home CMS has placed under closer oversight because of its inspection record over about three years. Here is how homes are chosen, what a candidate is, and how a home leaves the program.
Understanding the record
How to read ratings, inspections and staffing figures.
- How much nurse staffing is enough?There is no federal minimum number of nursing hours per resident. See what federal and state rules do require, the national average, the 4.1-hour benchmark from a CMS study, and how to read a home's staffing figures.
- How to read CMS star ratingsWhat the overall, health inspection, staffing and quality measure ratings cover, and what they leave out.
- Inspection severity letters A to LHow inspectors grade each deficiency by harm and by how many residents were affected.
- What to ask on a nursing home tourQuestions that turn a home's public record into a useful conversation when you tour, plus what to look for yourself.