How we cite CMS Care Compare data — and what we don't measure.

Source: CMS Care Compare. CMS ratings are published by CMS; Fonteum reports the cited fields and their source-specific limitations.

This home-health methodology uses the CMS Care Compare Home Health Care Agencies master dataset. CMS publishes the dataset quarterly via the CMS Provider Data Catalog, under U.S. Government Works (public domain). Publisher cadence does not establish Fonteum's loaded date.

Publication policy requires a CMS-cited block to identify the source, show the available snapshot or observation date, state the relevant limitations, and carry the non-endorsement sentence. Runtime provenance fields vary by record and may be null or absent; the page must disclose that rather than invent a value.

• CMS Care Compare Home Health master dataset
• Published quarterly under U.S. Government Works (public domain)
• Source / available observation date / limitations on CMS-cited blocks
• Non-endorsement sentence required on CMS-cited blocks

The CMS quality-of-patient-care star rating is built from a published bundle of process and outcome measures that CMS calculates from Medicare claims and the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS). It runs from 1.0 to 5.0 in 0.5 increments. The current snapshot covers 12,392 Medicare-certified home-health agencies; 64.24% are rated, 35.76% are unrated.

Unrated agencies are not categorically lower-quality. In current production, all 4,431 unrated source rows carry the CMS footnote that the number of patient episodes is too small to report; three also carry special-needs-population wording. The CMS technical documentation is the canonical reference for the algorithm, the measure weights, and the unrated-state definitions. Fonteum does not recompute the rating.

• 1.0 to 5.0 in 0.5 increments
• Built from Medicare claims + OASIS measures
• 64.24% of agencies are rated; 35.76% unrated
• Unrated ≠ low-quality (read CMS unrated-state definitions)

Fonteum does not independently rate, inspect, verify, endorse, or guarantee any home-health agency. Anywhere this site cites a CMS rating, the rating is CMS's. We do not have a Fonteum rating for home-health. We do not run audits, on-site visits, or peer-comparison evaluations. We present CMS data with source attribution and the available observation date; limitations remain source- and field-specific.

The platform's existing user reviews — which exist for other verticals — do not appear on home-health surfaces. CMS measure definitions and consumer reviews are different signal classes, and the §114 doctrine prohibits combining them in the same UI element on a home-health profile.

When the home-health vertical launches, agency profile pages will display eight CMS-published fields:

• CMS Certification Number (CCN)
• CMS-registered provider name
• Address, city, state, ZIP, phone (CMS values are used for matching; consumer-facing display shows the platform's canonical address)
• Type of ownership (Proprietary / Non-Profit / Government Operated)
• Medicare/Medicaid certification date
• CMS quality-of-patient-care star rating (1.0–5.0)
• Service offerings (nursing, PT, OT, speech, medical-social, home-health-aide)
• Source line, available observation date, and limitations required on CMS-cited blocks

CMS publishes 13 process measures (timeliness of care, falls with major injury, skin-integrity changes, etc.) and three risk-standardized outcome clusters (Discharged to Community, Potentially Preventable Readmissions, Potentially Preventable Hospitalizations). These signals require statistical context — confidence intervals, denominator adequacy, risk-adjustment caveats — that does not fit a profile card without misreading.

These fields are write-locked: captured to provenance for traceability, but not rendered on profile pages until Fonteum's editorial review approves a framing that preserves CMS's published context. Aggregate analyses of these measures appear on the /research surface only; they never attach to individual agency profiles.

This site is a published directory of CMS data. It is not a substitute for medical advice, clinical judgment, or care-planning conversations with a healthcare provider. Decisions about home-health care should be made with a doctor, discharge planner, or care navigator who knows the patient's specific situation. CMS ratings are one signal of agency quality; they are not a recommendation about what care any individual patient needs.

Fonteum Research has published a production-derived snapshot of CMS home-health data covering 12,392 agencies. It reports rating availability, the rated-agency star distribution, ownership mix, and bounded comparisons with nursing-home and dialysis datasets. The exact server-side SQL and full result are downloadable from the study.

Read the study: Home Health Rating Availability Study.

Fonteum does not independently rate, inspect, verify, endorse, or guarantee any home-health agency. CMS ratings cited on this site are CMS's, not Fonteum's. We do not own, manage, or moderate the CMS measure definitions; we cite them with source attribution and last-checked date.

The CMS quality-of-patient-care star rating is one signal of agency quality. Unrated agencies are not categorically lower-quality. Aggregate findings are descriptive of a national publishing snapshot; they are not endorsements of any specific agency and do not attach to individual agency profiles. No paid-placement adjusts CMS-rating display order.

• Fonteum does not rate, inspect, verify, endorse, or guarantee any agency
• CMS ratings are CMS's, not Fonteum's
• Unrated ≠ low-quality
• Aggregate research data never attaches to agency profiles
• Paid placement does not adjust CMS-rating display