The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed a rating system to help compare the quality of senior health services across skilled nursing centers. A CMS 5-Star rating is the highest “grade” a skilled nursing community can earn. The CMS 5-Star rating system is actually intensively created from close inspection of key sources:
Health Inspections
Staffing
Quality Measures (QMs)
Each of the health inspection, staffing, quality of care and claims are assessed and given an individual star rating. These individual ratings are then combined to produce the overall star rating, which is typically one of the first reference points for seniors researching Medicare nursing services.