The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) provides extremely useful information about Medicare and Medicaid nursing home providers with links to applicable laws, regulations and compliance information. You can view the main site here: www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/12_NHs.asp. Most importantly, however, CMS provides a list of what is known as “special focus facilities” or a list of nursing homes that have a record of poor survey (inspection) results. These surveys are unannounced and are an important tool in evaluating the performance and compliance of nursing homes. In fact, you can view the nursing homes in your area and even compare them here: http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare.