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.
National elder-care snapshot
Across the 14,710 Medicare-certified nursing homes in all 50 states, the facility-weighted average CMS quality rating is 3.0 of 5, and 39% of rated homes earn 4 stars or higher. The national median for a semi-private room is $11,029/month.
CMS Care Compare — National Quality Profile
How U.S. nursing homes score on the CMS overall rating and its three component domains. Filled polygon = facility-weighted national means; dashed = 3.0-star reference baseline.
Facility-weighted national means
Nationally, nursing homes average 3.0 stars overall, held down by health inspections (2.8) and staffing (2.9), and lifted by quality measures (3.6). The thin marker is the 3.0-star midpoint.
How U.S. nursing homes are rated
Distribution of all 14,574 CMS-rated nursing homes across the 1-to-5 overall star scale. Source: CMS Nursing Home Compare.
39% earn 4 stars or higher. See the full statistics.
Does paying more buy better care?
Each dot is a state, plotted by its median semi-private nursing-home cost against its average CMS quality rating. The two barely move together: 6 states sit in the "pay more, get less" quadrant, while 12 deliver above-average quality below the national median cost.
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 the CareScout Cost of Care Survey 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 or the national elder-care statistics reference.
Oregon leads US nursing-home private-room costs at $18,448/month
CareScout 2025 Cost of Care data shows Oregon ($18,448/month), Connecticut ($16,729), and New York ($16,729) leading US states in private-room nursing-home costs, a $10,000-plus monthly gap versus the most affordable states.
ResearchFrom $2,557 to $11,983 a month: the US long-term-care cost ladder
PlainElderCare's five-care-type ladder runs from adult day health care at $2,557/month to a private-room nursing home at $11,983/month, a 4.7x cost spread across the long-term-care spectrum.
MethodologyHow we work with CMS & CareScout data
Sources, refresh cadence, transformation steps, and the limits of every facility-level rating and cost we publish.
About this data
How PlainElderCare is sourced, updated, and kept independent.
Where does the data on PlainElderCare come from? +
Facility quality ratings come from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Nursing Home Compare and Home Health Compare programs; cost figures come from the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey. We present this public data as-is, with no adjustments.
How current is the data? +
CMS refreshes facility quality ratings monthly as new inspection, staffing, and quality-measure data is published; CareScout publishes its cost survey annually. We update PlainElderCare as new source releases become available.
Does PlainElderCare accept payment from the facilities it covers? +
No. We accept no advertising, sponsorship, or referral fees from nursing homes, agencies, or facilities. Our only revenue is contextual display advertising, which never influences which facilities we cover or how their ratings are shown.
Is anything on this site medical, legal, or financial advice? +
No. PlainElderCare is an informational resource built on public federal and survey data. Always consult licensed professionals and visit facilities in person before making elder-care decisions.