Nearly all nursing homes in the United States accept Medicare, but Medicare only covers skilled nursing facility stays under specific conditions and for a limited time. Finding the right facility means using the official Medicare search tool, understanding what Medicare will and won’t pay for, and evaluating quality before you commit. Here’s how to do each of those things.
Start With Medicare’s Care Compare Tool
The fastest way to find Medicare-certified nursing homes near you is the Care Compare tool at Medicare.gov. You can search by ZIP code, city, or street address, and optionally enter a facility name if you already have one in mind. Every facility that appears in the results is certified to accept Medicare, so the tool doubles as a filter. It also lets you compare facilities side by side on quality metrics, which saves time later in the process.
Care Compare assigns each nursing home an overall rating on a 1-to-5 star scale, with separate ratings in three categories: health inspections, staffing levels, and quality measures. Health inspection scores are based on state surveys and complaint investigations. Staffing ratings reflect how many nursing hours each resident receives. Quality measures track things like how often residents develop pressure sores, lose too much weight, or end up back in the hospital. A facility with a high overall rating but a low staffing score, for example, is worth investigating further before you visit.
What Medicare Actually Covers
Medicare does not cover long-term nursing home care. This is the single most important thing to understand before you start your search. What Medicare Part A does cover is short-term skilled nursing facility care, typically after a hospital stay, when you need daily skilled nursing or rehabilitation services like physical therapy.
To qualify, you must first have a qualifying inpatient hospital stay of at least 3 consecutive days. The count starts the day you’re formally admitted as an inpatient and does not include the day you leave. Time spent in the emergency room, under observation, or as an outpatient before admission does not count toward those 3 days, even if you’re physically in the hospital overnight. This is a common and costly surprise for families who assume any time in the hospital qualifies.
If you meet the 3-day requirement, Medicare covers the first 20 days in a skilled nursing facility at no cost to you. From days 21 through 100, you pay a daily coinsurance of $209.50 (in 2025). After day 100, Medicare coverage ends entirely. If you no longer need skilled care, coverage can end even sooner.
If You Need Long-Term Care
Because Medicare’s coverage caps at 100 days and only applies to skilled care, most people who need ongoing nursing home residence will eventually pay through other means. The three main options are paying out of pocket, long-term care insurance, and Medicaid.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that covers long-term nursing home stays for people with limited income and assets. Eligibility rules vary by state, but many states set higher income limits for nursing home residents than for other Medicaid programs. You may qualify for Medicaid nursing home coverage even if you’ve never qualified for Medicaid before. Even if you’re paying privately when you move in, it’s smart to choose a facility that accepts Medicaid. Many residents eventually spend down their savings and need to transition to Medicaid coverage, and switching facilities at that point is disruptive and stressful.
One important detail: even if Medicare isn’t paying for your nursing home stay itself, you still need Medicare to cover doctor visits, hospital care, prescriptions, and medical supplies while you’re a resident.
How to Evaluate a Facility in Person
Online ratings give you a starting point, but they can’t replace an in-person visit. When you tour a facility, pay attention to basics that data can’t capture: how the building smells, whether residents look well-groomed, how staff interact with people in the hallways, and whether common areas feel active or empty.
CMS publishes a checklist of specific questions to ask during a visit. Some of the most useful ones include:
- Availability: Does the nursing home currently have any openings? Many facilities maintain waitlists, so ask about typical wait times.
- Staffing ratios: How many nurses and certified nursing assistants are on duty during the day, at night, and on weekends? Facilities are required to post staffing levels where residents can see them.
- Dementia care: If relevant, ask about staff-to-resident ratios specifically in memory care units.
- Medicare bed limits: Some facilities cap the number of beds designated for Medicare-covered stays. Ask whether Medicare beds are currently available and how long the typical Medicare-covered stay lasts before a transition discussion happens.
Visit at different times of day if you can. A facility that looks calm and well-staffed on a Tuesday morning may feel very different on a Saturday evening.
Get Help From an Ombudsman
Every state has a Long-Term Care Ombudsman program, funded through the Older Americans Act. Ombudsmen investigate complaints, advocate for residents’ rights, and provide information about long-term care options in your area. They can be a valuable resource before you choose a facility, not just after problems arise. They often know which local facilities have patterns of complaints and which ones consistently treat residents well.
You can find your state’s ombudsman program through the Administration for Community Living’s online directory at acl.gov. The service is free.
A Practical Search Checklist
Pulling all of this together, here’s a sequence that works:
- Confirm your coverage situation. Will this be a short-term skilled nursing stay after a hospitalization, or a long-term placement? This determines whether Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, or out-of-pocket payment is your primary funding source.
- Verify the 3-day rule. If you’re counting on Medicare, confirm with the hospital that your stay was formally classified as inpatient for at least 3 days. Ask directly, because observation status looks identical from a patient’s perspective.
- Search Care Compare. Enter your location, review star ratings, and shortlist facilities with strong marks in all three categories.
- Check Medicaid acceptance. Even if you don’t need Medicaid now, confirm that your top choices accept it. Call the facility’s admissions office to verify, since this can change.
- Contact your state ombudsman. Ask about complaint histories for the facilities on your list.
- Tour your top choices. Use the CMS checklist questions above, visit more than once, and talk to current residents or their families if the opportunity arises.
The search process can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re managing it alongside a family member’s health crisis. Starting with the Care Compare tool and narrowing from there gives you a structured path through what would otherwise be an open-ended and emotionally charged decision.