Who makes this

Who I am

My name is Steve Wylie. I'm an average guy from Georgia. I built and maintain everything on this site. 

I do also have a master's degree in mental health counseling and an MBA. I want to be clear about telling you that:  I am NOT a licensed clinician and I do NOT practice. I have used the counseling degree professionally, working as a career counselor helping people to prepare to find work, but my credentials don't mean I am here to diagnose anybody and I am not trying to. Most of my career has been ordinary labor jobs, actually; I'm a pretty good technician. That generally pays better, so that is mostly where I have made money. But all those conditions said, I am educated to a level that demonstrates an objectively evaluated understanding of a lot of the research and practices that go on to inform or judge exactly this type of system where there is an intersection of care and business. 

Why I made this

I made this because it happened in my life and it has not been easy. Being an average person I know this is happening in the lives of my peers as well. 

Basically, my mother died and my father did not survive it well.

He didn't want our help. He didn't want us to see him needing that help.  And there was a long uncomfortable history between Dad and sons, a history that let him keep that distance far too easily.  So he pushed us away and we stayed away, and he got worse where we couldn't see it. By the time we understood how bad things were, he was very sick and had been handling the illness alone for a long time.

He came to live with me the day the hospital released him from a long stay. It wasn't planned. He couldn't manage on his own anymore, and that morning the choice was a facility or my house. I had not come that day knowing this.  Neither of us had ever looked into either option.

I gave him my bed that first week. I didn't own a second one and there wasn't time to think it through. I adjusted my whole life on the spot that day and so did he.  There has been nothing about this that was easy since that day.

He got better over the next year and as soon as he could, he was out the door. He could not stand the changes of the new life and found another place where he felt more comfortable.

That did not last, of course. While it was difficult during his first stay, when he came back I wasn't gracious about it. The first time I was scared for him. The second time I was resentful. We had established plans together for how to proceed, I had changed my life around, and then he walked away leaving me on the hook for a life I had never wanted. But while he was gone, I reoriented and moved on. I was  preparing my house for sale or rent and I was about to move to another state. I had a life I meant to resume. But when the phone rang and he told me he couldn't make it alone, my whole life changed shape yet again around another decision I didn't fully get to make. 

It hasn't been a happy story since. There is trouble in this house many days. It took me a long time  to be at ease with any of it, and the same goes for him. His treatment is working, but it doesn't matter: he would need assistance at this age sick or not. 

This site started on an ordinary bad health day for Dad. He'd had a week of decline and he told me he felt so awful he thought he needed more care than we could manage like this. So the two of us sat there asking each other the same question. What do we do if we need more help?

Neither of us could easily find out. I'm way over educated and even I was intimidated by the fine details of what goes on in this elder care industry.  And its not just the industry, its the government regulations surrounding what help you can get and how the costs are paid.   I couldn't get a straight answer to a single simple question. And nationwide, the answers are split across fifty-one governments who each put them somewhere unique, in their own words, in a format built for regulators, not consumers. And most of what a search engine hands you in that moment was written to sell you a placement in a facility ( admittedly at no cost to you) so that the placer you choose makes a profit.  

So I took all the information and have been putting it in one place, hoping that nobody has to go hunting down captcha holes so deep you don't know where you are by the time you prove you're human.  Because family can live all over the country and there needs to be an easy site to make this workable from whatever state you need to explore. I felt this all can't remain accessible only to those trying to profit off your family's moment of need.  I try to write down what I learn while I'm doing it, and I show you where I got it.  The idea is simply to let you know, whether you are the child caring for a parent or a parent alone and frightened to seek help from your children: you are not actually alone.  This may not be easy, but maybe with these stories and ideas and centralization of all the information, the next person sitting at that kitchen table making this decision will start with a better advantage than we did.

What I know about, and what I don't

I'm here so you don't feel alone. That might not seem like much now, but it may one day. I will write directly about how families make these decisions and come apart doing it. Caregiver exhaustion. Fights between brothers and sisters. Guilt. The conversation about the car keys. How to walk into an appointment ready to ask something instead of nodding through it. How the money works, which means Medicaid's five-year window, what care actually costs, what insurance does and doesn't cover. That is where counseling training, an MBA, and having sat in those rooms myself all overlap.  

I do not practice medicine. I won't tell you what stage anything is, or what a drug is doing for your mother, or what her prognosis means. When this site touches something clinical, it quotes a source, links it, dates it, and points you at the person qualified to read it with you.  Don't just believe anyone online or in social media.  Trained medical professionals are not quacks, science is real, and government regulations and insurance are complicated.  So listen to YOUR doctor and medical team, not somebody online.  Listen to a local SHIP counselor, or your Area Agency on Aging, or a veterans service officer, or an elder law attorney. I can help you ask questions. I can't answer in the place of such a professional.

Where the numbers come from

The nursing home information comes from CMS Care Compare, the official dataset from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Provider Information, dataset 4pq5-n9py). It covers all 14,690 Medicare-certified nursing homes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Assisted living and residential care come from each state's own licensing agency. States license those, not the federal government. That is why no single national list exists, and why this site had to be built one state at a time.

What you see here is a dated snapshot, taken from CMS records as of May 1, 2026. CMS updates its files about once a month, so an individual figure can change. Every facility shows that date and links straight to the live CMS record so you can check the current number yourself.

I report, I don't say

This site never describes a facility in my own words. I don't call any home good, or bad, or dangerous. I show you what CMS already published. The star rating it assigned. Whether it carries an abuse flag. The fines on its record. Every one of those is attributed to CMS, linked to the source, and stamped with a date.

That keeps the site an honest mirror instead of an accuser. The patterns in the data can be striking. The conclusions are yours to draw.

In the guides it works differently, because there I am explaining what a rule means or how a decision tends to go. That is me interpreting. So I say so, I show you what I read, and I link it. You are never asked to take my word for anything. That is the whole design.  You're going to be looking this up anyway, consider this a head start on your own research. 

What this is not

It is not medical, legal, or financial advice. It is not an endorsement of any facility, and it is not a warning about one either. It is not a complete picture of quality. A clean record is not a guarantee and a flag is not a verdict. Ratings and inspections are one input. Visit in person, ask questions, and confirm what matters directly with the facility.

How to check any number

Open any facility and click "View this facility's official CMS record." That link goes to Care Compare on medicare.gov, where the same numbers live. If anything here ever disagrees with the official source, the official source is right. Tell me and I'll fix it.

Privacy

There are no accounts, no logins, and no contact form that sends your information to a salesperson. I never ask who you are or who you're looking for. The facility search runs inside your own browser, so what you type never reaches me.

The site does carry advertising now. That is how it pays for itself. The ads are served by outside companies that set their own cookies, and that information goes to them, not to me. The privacy page says exactly what they collect and how to turn personalized ads off. It changed in September 2026 and it says so, because I started the site idealistically  and met reality quickly as so often happens in life. 

How it stays free

I take no referral fees and I sell no contact information. Most senior care referral sites are paid thousands of dollars when a family moves into a partner facility. I am not, and I won't be. Paying never moves a facility up a list here and never hides a safety record. Those rules don't change.

Corrections

If something here doesn't match the official record, I want to know. The site updates monthly.  Email [email protected] with the page and what looks wrong and I'll check it against the source. If I got it wrong I'll fix it and say that I did if it is outside the monthly expected changes and updates.