Last verified: October 2026
Who licenses nursing homes in Pennsylvania?
The Pennsylvania Department of Health licenses nursing homes and handles their federal certification, along with complaint and incident investigations; personal care homes and assisted living residences are a separate category under the Department of Human Services.
Sources: PA Department of Health.
What is the CMS Five-Star rating?
CMS's Five-Star Quality Rating System gives each Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home an overall rating of 1 to 5 stars built from three parts it also publishes separately: health inspections, staffing, and quality measures (with long-stay and short-stay quality ratings).
The ratings compare nursing homes with other nursing homes. There is no CMS rating for personal care homes or assisted living residences, and Pennsylvania publishes none either.
How do Pittsburgh-area nursing homes score?
Of the 111 CMS-certified nursing homes in our seven counties (14,010 certified beds), 109 carry an overall rating: 7 have 5 stars and 48 have 1 star, based on CMS data processed October 1, 2026.
See every home, sortable by rating, beds and county, in our nursing home directory.
How should you use a nursing home's star rating?
Use the overall rating to build a short list, then read the parts: a low health-inspection rating points to survey deficiencies you can read on Care Compare, a low staffing rating to fewer nurse hours per resident, and a recent change of ownership can make older results less predictive.
Also check fines, payment denials and whether CMS shows its abuse icon, all of which appear on our facility pages where CMS reports them.
What do staffing hours on CMS's data mean?
CMS reports total nurse staffing hours per resident per day from payroll data; across the 111 nursing homes in our seven counties the median is 3.57 hours, and each facility page shows how a home compares with its county.
How often are Pennsylvania nursing homes surveyed?
Each certified nursing home receives a standard health survey on a recurring cycle plus complaint and incident investigations in between, and CMS publishes the dates and deficiency counts of the two most recent standard surveys; our facility pages show both cycles where CMS reports them.
A survey older than two years is flagged by CMS, which is worth noticing when you compare homes.
What is a CMS special focus facility?
CMS places a small number of nursing homes with a persistent record of serious problems in its Special Focus Facility program for more frequent inspections; when CMS lists a home's special focus status, our facility page shows it.
A CMS star rating: what it is and is not
| It is | It is not | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | CMS | the state or a private site |
| Covers | certified nursing homes | personal care homes or ALRs |
| Built from | inspections, staffing, quality measures | resident reviews |
| Use | a starting point | a guarantee of individual care |
