Clear Care Connect vs Medicare.gov Facility Finder — Which is Better for Finding Senior Care in 2026?
When your family needs senior care, every resource matters — and the difference between two websites can quietly shape which facility your parent moves into. Medicare.gov Care Compare is the source of truth for nursing home inspection data, and Clear Care Connect uses that same federal data. The difference is scope and usability: Care Compare covers Medicare-certified providers only, while Clear Care Connect adds assisted living, memory care, adult day programs and cost estimates around the same records. Both tools help families, and this page is honest about where Medicare.gov is the better choice. The short version of the difference: Clear Care Connect shows the government inspection record on every facility, never sells your contact information, and never lets a facility pay its way up the results. This is one of the hardest decisions a family ever makes, and you deserve to make it with the full record in front of you.
Clear Care Connect vs Medicare.gov Facility Finder at a glance
| Feature | Clear Care Connect | Medicare.gov Facility Finder |
|---|---|---|
| Total facilities listed | 22,379 verified facilities across 52 states and territories | Roughly 15,000 Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes, plus separate directories for hospitals, home health, hospice, dialysis and other Medicare-certified providers |
| Government inspection data | Yes — real CMS star ratings, inspection reports, deficiency history, penalties and fire safety data | Yes — this is the original source: CMS five-star overall, health inspection, staffing and quality measure ratings, deficiency citations, Special Focus Facility status, fire safety results and penalty records |
| Do they sell your contact information | Never — we do not sell leads or charge facilities for referrals | No — a federal government website with no lead generation or referral relationships |
| Paid placement affecting results | No — results are never influenced by which facility pays more | No — no advertising or sponsored listings of any kind |
| CMS penalty and deficiency history | Yes — full penalty records and deficiency details available | Yes — civil money penalties, payment denials and deficiency detail are published |
| Cost to families | Completely free to search, with no sales pressure | Free |
| Coverage | 52 states and territories | All 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories |
| Facility types covered | Nursing homes, assisted living, memory care, home health, adult day programs and CCRCs | Medicare-certified providers: nursing homes, home health agencies, hospices, hospitals, dialysis facilities and inpatient rehabilitation; assisted living and memory care are not covered |
| Medicaid eligibility estimator | Yes — free Medicaid eligibility and spend-down estimator covering 11 service types in all 51 states and DC | No — Medicare.gov explains Medicaid at a high level and links to state agencies, but publishes no eligibility or spend-down estimator |
| Free senior care cost data | Yes — free state-by-state senior care cost data, downloadable as CSV with no email required | Yes — official Medicare cost information is free and public, but it does not cover assisted living or memory care pricing by state |
| Senior care glossary | Yes — 155-term searchable senior care glossary with plain-English definitions | Yes — an official Medicare glossary is published |
| Head-to-head comparison pages | Yes — 8 published head-to-head comparisons, including this one | None — competitors are not compared side by side |
The data privacy difference
Many senior care finder websites operate on a referral model. When a family submits an inquiry, their contact information becomes a paid lead, and that lead is often passed to several communities at once. The result is familiar to anyone who has done it: a phone that rings for weeks, from numbers you do not recognise, at the single most stressful moment your family has faced in years.
Medicare.gov is the one competitor in this comparison that shares Clear Care Connect's privacy position: it is a public service with nothing to sell. If your only concern is avoiding referral calls, Care Compare is a safe place to start.
Clear Care Connect never sells contact information and never charges facilities for referrals. There is no partner network standing behind a form. When you request a tour, that request goes directly to the one facility you chose, and nowhere else. You can search all 22,379 facilities without creating an account, and nothing you look at generates a sales call.
The government data advantage
Clear Care Connect pulls data directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that inspects and certifies senior care facilities. That means real inspection history, the actual deficiency citations a surveyor wrote down, penalty records including civil money penalties and payment denials, fire safety inspection results, staffing measures and the official five-star ratings.
Clear Care Connect is not claiming better data than CMS — it is the same federal data. What differs is presentation: we attach cost estimates, Google review signals, amenity detail and side-by-side comparison to the same records, and we cover care types Care Compare does not, such as assisted living and memory care.
This matters because government inspection data reveals what marketing materials are designed to hide. A brochure will show you a sunlit dining room. An inspection report will show you whether residents went without prescribed medication, whether call lights went unanswered, whether the building failed a life safety code check. Both are true; only one of them is written by someone with no financial interest in your decision.
Facility coverage
Clear Care Connect lists 22,379 verified facilities across 52 states and territories. Every facility is matched against CMS government records before it is published, so a listing is evidence that the facility exists in the federal record — not that someone paid to appear.
Care Compare stops at Medicare certification. A licensed assisted living community or memory care residence with no Medicare relationship simply is not there. That is the coverage gap Clear Care Connect fills, while still surfacing CMS data on every facility that has it.
Coverage spans the care types families actually move between: skilled nursing homes, assisted living, memory care, hospice, home health, adult day programs and continuing care retirement communities. You can start in a state hub such as nursing homes in California or Texas, narrow to a city, and compare facilities side by side without ever entering a phone number.
Where Medicare.gov wins
Medicare.gov is authoritative, completely free, and covers every Medicare-certified nursing home in the country — nothing is gated, and no commercial interest sits between you and the record. For nursing home inspection detail it is the primary source and always will be.
It also publishes datasets that no commercial site can match in raw completeness, including ownership records and Special Focus Facility designations. One caveat families should know: a 2023 HHS Office of Inspector General audit found CMS had inaccurately reported some deficiency data, so even the official source benefits from a second look.
Frequently asked questions
Is Clear Care Connect better than Medicare.gov for finding nursing homes?
They serve different needs. Medicare.gov is the authoritative source for nursing home inspection data and Clear Care Connect uses that same CMS data. Clear Care Connect adds cost estimates, assisted living and memory care coverage, Google review signals and easier side-by-side comparison. Many families check both.
Does Clear Care Connect sell my information like other senior care finder sites?
No. Like Medicare.gov, Clear Care Connect has no referral relationships. We do not sell leads and facilities cannot pay for placement. Tour requests reach only the facility you chose.
How many facilities does Clear Care Connect list compared to Medicare.gov?
Clear Care Connect lists 22,379 verified facilities across 52 states and territories, including assisted living and memory care. Medicare.gov covers roughly 15,000 Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes, plus separate directories for other Medicare-certified provider types.
Does Medicare.gov show government inspection data?
Yes — it is the origin of that data, including five-star ratings, health inspection results, staffing measures, deficiency citations, fire safety findings and penalty records for certified nursing homes.
Find senior care with complete government data and zero sales pressure
Search 22,379 verified facilities across 52 states and territories. See real CMS inspection reports, official star ratings, penalty history and fire safety records alongside estimated monthly costs. No account is required to search, and no contact information is ever sold. When you are ready to tour, your request goes to that facility alone.
Search Senior Care Facilities Near YouKeep researching
Sources
- medicare.gov/care-compare and CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System technical guide
- CMS Provider Data Catalog (data.cms.gov)
- HHS Office of Inspector General report A-09-20-02007, April 2023