Methodology

Where the data comes from

Three public sources, all US government data in the public domain. We do not buy lists, and providers cannot add themselves.

• CMS Provider Data Catalog. The Provider Data Catalog files for home health agencies, hospices and nursing homes, including the star ratings, the Medicare and Medicaid certification flags, and for home health the ZIP codes each agency says it serves.
• NPI Registry. Organization records from the NPPES NPI Registry. This is how we find home care agencies, assisted living residences, memory care, adult day care and other providers that CMS does not rate.
• Census Bureau. The Gazetteer files and population estimates give us states, counties, cities and towns, ZIP codes and their locations.

Statements by providers about the areas they cover or the funding they accept are never mixed into the CMS and NPI data. Where we show one, it is labelled as the provider's own claim, with the source and the date we read it.

How services are categorized

We sort providers into our own care categories: home care, home health, hospice, assisted living, memory care, nursing homes and others. CMS provider types and NPI taxonomy codes are inputs, not the categories themselves.

A CMS certification tells us what kind of provider it is, and a certified home health agency, hospice or nursing home gets that category with confidence. An NPI taxonomy code is different. The provider picks it when it enumerates, nobody checks it, and one code can cover very different businesses. We use it as a signal, and only when it is strong enough to count. It is never proof that a provider delivers a service.

How rankings are built

Only providers that CMS rates are ranked. A ranked list is sorted by the CMS star rating that applies to that kind of provider, highest first, using the rating CMS publishes and not one of our own. Where CMS publishes more than one rating, the page says which it used. Ties are broken by name, alphabetically, so the order is stable and reproducible.

Unrated means unknown

A provider with no CMS rating has not been judged poor. It has not been rated, because it is too new, too small, or a kind of provider CMS does not rate. We do not rank an unrated provider last, as if it were bad, and we do not pad a ranked list with it. Care types that CMS does not rate at all, such as non-medical home care and assisted living, get a list and not a ranking, and the page says how the list is ordered.

Where we publish a ranking at all

A service and city page carries a noindex tag, and stays out of the sitemap, when it does not have enough matching providers, or for CMS-rated services when none of them has a high enough CMS rating, or when the city is too small. Those pages stay available to people browsing the directory. We use "best-rated" in a title only when at least two providers can be ordered, and a list is never padded to reach a round number.

Nobody can pay for a position

There is no advertising on this site, no sponsored placement and no paid ranking. A provider cannot pay to appear, to rank higher, or to have a competitor removed. The ranking is computed from CMS data by code, and the same code runs for every page.

How we make money

Carevo US is free for families. We have not introduced provider charges on this site. If that changes, this page will explain the model, and how payment is kept separate from listing and from ranking, before it takes effect.

How we decide which areas a provider serves

A provider appears on a city page for one of three reasons, and the card says which:

• Address. The provider's address is in the area.
• CMS service ZIP codes. For home health agencies, CMS publishes the ZIP codes each agency says it serves. If the area's ZIP codes are on that list, the provider appears.
• Nearby. The provider's address is within 15 miles of the center of the area for care that comes to your home, or within 10 miles for care you travel to, such as a nursing home or assisted living residence. Nearby providers are always labelled nearby.

A distance is a plausibility filter, not confirmation that a provider will accept your address. Call the provider and ask. Cities are Census places, so two towns with the same name in different states are different pages, and the state is always in the address.

What this data cannot tell you

An address is not a coverage area. Outside home health, there is no public record of where a home care agency will travel. A listed agency may cover three neighboring towns, or half of its own.

Public data says little about funding. CMS shows whether a provider is certified for Medicare and Medicaid. It does not say whether a provider accepts a particular Medicaid waiver program, long-term care insurance or VA payment, and the NPI Registry says nothing. An absence of funding information means we do not know, never that the answer is no.

The NPI taxonomy is self-reported. See above. It is an input signal only.

A provider can change after its data is published. Always check the current record on Medicare.gov and your state's licensing and inspection pages before making a decision. CMS rates, states license, and we report.

What we are not

Carevo Pty Ltd is a connection platform and a directory. We do not deliver care, employ caregivers, place residents, inspect providers or vouch for any provider. We are not a regulator and we are not CMS. We do not give legal, financial or medical advice: the funding guides explain published rules and rates, and where a decision turns on your circumstances we say to get advice from someone qualified to give it.

CMS, NPI Registry and Census data are US government works in the public domain. Their use here does not mean any agency endorses this site, and none does.

Corrections

If a listing, rating or figure is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say what changed. Provider details come from CMS and the NPI Registry, so a correction there usually has to go to CMS or to the provider as well, and we will point you to the right place.

Email [email protected], or use the contact page. Our editorial standards cover how content is written, sourced and reviewed, and the complaints policy covers what to do if we get something more seriously wrong.