Medicare OSCAR Certification

Nursing homes eligible to receive payments from Medicare are Medicare-certified. Once a nursing home is certified, it is routinely inspected. The results of these inspections are placed in the Online Survey, Certification and Reporting (OSCAR) database. So, OSCAR is not a certification; OSCAR is a database containing information about Medicare-certified nursing homes. According to the American Health Care Association, OSCAR is the most comprehensive source of information available on nursing homes.

Nursing Home Inspections

• Because state governments license nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a contract with each state for the state to conduct onsite nursing home inspections to determine if the nursing home meets minimum Medicare and Medicaid standards. The information from these inspections goes into the OSCAR database.

Inspection Process

• Usually, a state inspects a nursing home about once a year; however, if a nursing home is performing poorly, inspections may be more frequent. States also investigate complaints against nursing homes. The inspectors observe resident care, the interaction between staff and residents and the environment and review clinical records. Inspectors also interview a sampling of residents and their family members, caregivers and administrative staff.

Regulatory Standards

• Nursing homes must meet 150 regulatory standards at all times, ranging from meeting individual resident needs to fire and construction safety. If the state inspectors find that a home does not meet a specific regulation, the nursing home receives a deficiency citation.

Getting Nursing Home Inspection Results

• At any time, the OSCAR database includes the information about the characteristics of each nursing home, health deficiencies issued during the three most recent state inspections and recent complaint investigations. Information is available to the public on the Medicare.gov website in a feature called Nursing Home Compare, which is updated monthly (see "Resources"). Also, the law requires that each nursing home have its latest survey results available for the public to review.