Upstate Nursing Homes by CMS Star Rating: An October 2026 Snapshot

The snapshot

From CMS Care Compare's Provider Information data as of October 1, 2026, matched to DPH's nursing home licenses:

Several homes appear in CMS's data under a different name than on their DPH license, usually after a change of operator; our facility pages show both names.

What the overall rating is made of

CMS builds the overall rating from three parts. The health inspection rating, based on the last three years of inspections and complaint investigations, carries the most weight. The staffing rating uses payroll data on nurse and aide hours per resident, adjusted for how sick the residents are. The quality measures rating draws on outcomes such as falls with injury, pressure ulcers, antipsychotic use and rehospitalization. The overall rating starts from the inspection rating and moves up or down based on the other two.

What to look at beyond the stars

Staffing hours are worth more attention than they get. Across the four counties' certified homes, the median is 3.36 total nurse staffing hours per resident per day; each facility page compares its own figure with that median, and with registered-nurse hours and weekend staffing. Turnover matters too: the median nursing staff turnover is 51.2%, and a home far above it is likely to have many unfamiliar faces on any given shift.

Look at the latest inspection's deficiency count and whether any deficiencies came from complaint investigations, which reflect problems someone cared enough to report. CMS also flags homes cited for abuse with an icon, and lists any fines and payment denials in its three-year window.

Short-stay versus long-stay

CMS publishes separate quality measures for short-stay rehab patients and long-stay residents. Many Upstate homes, especially those with Post Acute in their names, emphasize rehab. A home that is excellent at getting joint-replacement patients home may be less suited to a parent who will live there for years, and the reverse. Look at the measures that match your situation.

When the stars change

CMS updates Care Compare every month, and ratings move after each new inspection or staffing report. A home that drops a star after one difficult inspection may recover within a year; a home that has been at one or two stars for several cycles is a different story. Our directory is rebuilt from CMS's Provider Information dataset, and each page states the data date, so you can tell whether you are looking at current figures.

If a home on your list is in CMS's Special Focus Facility program for persistent serious problems, CMS notes it, and so does the facility's page on our site. Ask such a home what has changed and how often it is now being inspected.

Remember too that ratings describe the whole building. A home's short-term rehab hall and its long-term floors can have different staff and very different routines, so ask which unit your parent would live on and visit that unit specifically.

Ownership and chains

CMS's data also shows each home's ownership type and, for homes run by multi-facility operators, the chain and its average ratings across all its homes. Several Upstate homes belong to regional or national chains; others are nonprofit campuses. Ownership type does not determine quality, but a chain's average gives context: a home well below its chain's average deserves a question about why.

CMS also reports whether a home changed ownership in the last 12 months. A recent change can bring new management and policies, for better or worse; ask what the new operator has changed.

That is also why the name on the sign may not match the name in CMS's data or on the DPH license. Several Upstate homes were renamed when a new operator took over, and our facility pages list the DPH license name, the CMS name and the CMS certification details together, so a family searching under an old name can still find the right record.

Using the snapshot

Start with homes near the person who will visit most, filter out any with serious recent problems, and visit the rest at a mealtime and in the evening. Ask about staff consistency, how families are kept informed, and whether the home accepts Healthy Connections Medicaid for long stays. South Carolina's 2025 median for a semi-private room is about $9,034 a month, so most long-stay residents eventually need Medicaid.

Our nursing home directory lets you sort every certified home in the four counties by CMS rating, inspection date and deficiencies.