Privacy

Updated September 6, 2026. Plain facts, in the same spirit as the rest of the site:

• No accounts. Nothing to sign up for, so we hold no user profiles.
• Analytics is your choice. On general pages, analytics may start automatically for visitors estimated to be in the United States. Elsewhere, or when the estimate is unavailable, we ask first. Facility records, state and city directories, search and comparison pages require your explicit allowance regardless of country. A rejection or browser privacy signal keeps analytics off. Every site feature works without analytics. We do not run advertising scripts.
• We do record server errors, so we can fix them. When a page fails to load, we log four things: the time, the kind of page it was (for example "a facility page" — not which facility), the error code, and a short technical description. That record contains nothing that identifies you or what you were looking up: no web address (URL), no IP address, no browser details, no search terms. We added it after two short outages that we only caught because we happened to be looking at the time.
• Standard server logs. Our hosting provider (Cloudflare) processes requests to serve pages, which involves ordinary technical data such as IP addresses, as described in their own policies. We don't build profiles from it.
• Search inputs stay out of our analytics events. Page requests can contain search terms in their URL. We remove query strings and fragments from the page addresses sent to Google Analytics and use generic titles for search and comparison pages.
• Facility quality data is public record published by CMS about Medicare- or Medicaid-certified providers — none of it is personal data about site visitors.

Optional Google Analytics

Introduced September 6, 2026. When analytics is enabled under the choices below, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand visits, traffic sources and which public pages people use, so we can improve the site. Google receives page views (including the public address of a facility record you open after explicitly allowing analytics), page titles, the referring site's origin, event times, browser/device information and pseudonymous cookie identifiers. Google also receives your IP address when your browser connects to its service. This is separate from our limited server-error records described above.

Country estimate and general pages

Without an existing choice, your browser may ask our host Cloudflare for a country estimate on the homepage, guides, About, Contact, Privacy and Methodology pages. That request carries normal connection information. Our script uses only the country field; it does not store the diagnostic response, record the IP address in it or send it to Google. We do not use your browser language or precise device location to guess where you are. VPNs can affect the estimate.

Only an estimate of the United States can enable analytics automatically on those general pages. Other or unknown countries, lookup failures and timeouts require your choice first. Browsing facility records or state/city directories, searching and comparing always requires explicit allowance. An automatic start on a general page does not count as your consent to measure these other pages. We do not save an automatic start as an “Allow analytics” choice. A saved refusal and browser privacy signals override the country estimate.

We do not send worksheet amounts, saved-home lists, comparison selections, search terms, URL query strings or fragments as analytics parameters. Referrer addresses are reduced to their origin, such as https://www.google.com/. Individual record visits can still be measured when analytics is allowed; the stored Viewed & saved list itself is not uploaded. We do not configure advertising personalization, Google Signals, User-ID, form tracking, session replay or advertising audiences.

Google Analytics uses first-party cookies named _ga and _ga_VZ8CVNKSV3 to distinguish browsers and sessions. We configure these cookies with a 90-day lifetime and without extending their expiry on each page load. Browser settings may shorten their lifetime. The analytics script and data requests go directly between your browser and Google. Google may process data on servers outside your country. See Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from partner sites.

Your choice and withdrawal

Choose “Reject analytics” or “Allow analytics” in the notice, or open “Analytics choices” in the footer. “Not now” leaves analytics off when the notice asks for your choice; “Close” only closes the controls when analytics is already on. We remember your explicit choice and its date in this browser's local storage for up to 180 days, then ask again. If storage is blocked, automatic analytics stays off and your explicit choice applies only to the current page. Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signals keep analytics off, even if this browser previously allowed it.

You can also use “Analytics choices” in every page's footer. Rejecting stops further collection and removes this integration's analytics cookies; when browser storage is available, the page reloads to unload the Google script. It does not erase data already received by Google. Your saved-home choices are not cleared by changing analytics consent. Clearing browser storage removes the saved consent choice. With JavaScript disabled, analytics does not load.

Cookie lifetime is not the same as Google's retention of collected data. Retention and deletion are managed through Google Analytics; we do not promise that earlier event data is deleted when a cookie expires or you withdraw consent. For privacy questions or requests about data already collected, contact us. Do not send medical or other sensitive personal information.

Viewed homes and comparison choices

Introduced September 4, 2026. With JavaScript enabled, opening a facility records its public name, CCN, location, link and visit time in this tab’s session storage. We keep up to 20 recent homes and four comparison choices. They are not sent to our server as a browsing-history record. Opening a facility or comparison still makes the ordinary page request, which includes its URL.

“Remember on this device” is off by default. If you enable it, these records move to local storage. Records older than 30 days are ignored when the site next loads; use Clear all or your browser settings to delete the stored data immediately. Anyone using the same browser profile could see them. Browser session restore can also restore session data. On shared devices, use “Clear all history & selections” in Viewed & saved; it removes both kinds of stored history. You can forget individual visits, remove comparison choices or turn remembering off.

Cost worksheet entries are held only on the displayed page, are not stored by this site and are not submitted to us. If browser storage is unavailable, the shortlist works only in the current page’s memory. You can still read every public record without JavaScript.

Our disclosure promise

We update this page alongside changes to data collection, explaining what was added, what it collects, and when it was introduced. Optional Google Analytics and this disclosure were introduced together on September 6, 2026. The error logging described above was added on 28 August 2026. Advertising, if introduced, will never appear alongside inspection findings or abuse-flag content, and will always be clearly labeled. Empty search results, error pages and navigation-only states will not carry advertising.