Where to start › Kind of care › Nursing care
Nursing-level care
A nursing home (skilled nursing facility) provides around-the-clock care from nurses and aides, for people who need real medical supervision — complex conditions, intensive rehabilitation after a hospital stay, or help that can't safely be given anywhere else.
Two very different things share one building
This is the single most misunderstood point in all of elder care, so it's worth slowing down on:
- Short-term skilled care (rehab). After a qualifying inpatient hospital stay, Medicare covers a limited stretch of skilled nursing or rehab — up to 100 days, with full coverage only for the first 20 and a daily copay after that. Our guide What does Medicare actually pay for? has the current 2026 figures and the official CMS source.
- Long-term custodial care. Staying in a nursing home for the ongoing help itself — not a short medical recovery — is not covered by Medicare. This is what most people mean by "the nursing home," and it is largely paid for privately or, for most long-stay residents eventually, by Medicaid.
Choosing a specific home
Every Medicare-certified nursing home has a public record — star ratings, inspection findings, staffing, and any abuse flags. Our directory puts that record in front of you, attributed to CMS and dated, so you can compare on safety rather than on a brochure. A clean record isn't a guarantee and a flag isn't a verdict — but you deserve to see what regulators see.
Where the public record stops — and who to ask
How does someone qualify for Medicaid to pay for long-term nursing care in your state? That answer depends on your state and your situation, and it belongs to the people who decide it — not to us. Here is who has it, and exactly what to ask so you arrive prepared instead of lost.
Who to ask: your state Medicaid office, and often an elder-law attorney for the money questions.
What to ask them:
- What are my state's income and asset limits for long-term-care Medicaid?
- Which nearby nursing homes accept Medicaid, and do they have Medicaid beds available?
- What is the application process and timeline?
- If my parent is married, how are the healthy spouse's income and savings protected?
You now know more than most people who walk into that office. That is the whole point of this page.
Who helps you locally — free, and on your side. You do not have to figure this out alone. Your Area Agency on Aging gives free options counseling; reach any of them through the federal Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 or eldercare.acl.gov (Administration for Community Living). More on the four people who help — and what each one does — on Who helps me locally.