What does elder care really cost?
Statewide assisted-living, home-care, and nursing-home prices from the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, joined with CMS Care Compare quality ratings for 14,710 Medicare-certified facilities across all 50 states.
CMS Care Compare — National Quality Profile
How U.S. nursing homes score across the five composite axes that drive the CMS overall star rating. Filled polygon = facility-weighted national means; dashed = 3.0-star reference baseline.
14,000+ Medicare-certified nursing homes · CMS Care Compare snapshot
What does each type of care cost?
Home Care (Homemaker/Home Health Aide)
National median monthly cost
Adult Day Health Care
National median monthly cost
Assisted Living Facility
National median monthly cost
Nursing Home (Semi-Private Room)
National median monthly cost
Nursing Home (Private Room)
National median monthly cost
Most Expensive States
Nursing home (semi-private) monthly cost
Most Affordable States
Nursing home (semi-private) monthly cost
Highest Quality Nursing Homes
Average CMS overall star rating
Elder Care Guides
Plain-English guides to help families navigate care decisions, costs, and quality ratings.
Nursing Home vs Assisted Living
Data-driven comparison of care levels, costs, and services
Paying for Elder Care
Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, and funding options
Understanding CMS Star Ratings
How inspections, staffing, and quality combine into an overall score
When Is It Time for Care?
Warning signs, conversations, and first steps
Choosing a Nursing Home
A data-driven approach to evaluating facilities
Browse by State
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does PlainElderCare get its data?
Data comes from CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) quality ratings for nursing homes and home health agencies, combined with CareScout and Genworth cost surveys for senior care pricing across all care types.
What types of senior care does PlainElderCare cover?
PlainElderCare tracks five care settings from the CareScout Cost of Care Survey: home care (home health aide), adult day health care, assisted living, semi-private nursing-home rooms, and private nursing-home rooms. Costs and quality data are available by state and county.
Is PlainElderCare free?
Yes, PlainElderCare is completely free. You can look up senior care costs, quality ratings, and compare options across states and counties without any account or subscription.
How often is the senior care data updated?
CMS updates nursing home and home health quality ratings quarterly. Cost surveys are updated annually. We sync our database when new data becomes available from these sources.
PlainElderCare presents CMS and CareScout data for comparison purposes only and does not constitute medical, eldercare, or financial planning advice. Speak with a geriatric care manager or licensed social worker for recommendations tailored to your family member.
Related Guides
Editorial context for the plaineldercare dataset — methodology, comparisons, and deep dives into the underlying records.
Research
Original analysis from our editorial team, every statistic derived from our own database. See all research.
Oregon 18448 Dollars Monthly Top US Nursing Home Private-Room Costs
Genworth Cost of Care data shows Oregon ($18448 monthly) Connecticut ($16729) and New York ($16729) leading US states in private-room nursing home costs — a $10000-plus-per-month gap versus the cheapest state tier.
ResearchFrom 2557 to 11983 Dollars Monthly: US Long-Term Care Cost Ladder
PlainElderCare's 6 care-type ladder runs from adult-day-health-care at $2557 monthly to private-room nursing home at $11983 monthly — a 4.7x cost spread across the long-term-care-setting spectrum.
MethodologyHow we work with CMS & Genworth data
Sources, refresh cadence, transformation steps, and the limits of every facility-level rating and cost we publish.