Adult Day Care Terms Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the most common terms used on ACD-HUB and throughout the adult day care, skilled nursing, and CMS data world.
- Adult day care
- A non-residential care program providing supervision, activities, meals, and limited health services during daytime hours for adults who cannot remain alone safely.
- Activities of daily living (ADLs)
- Basic self-care tasks: bathing, dressing, eating, transferring, toileting, and continence. CMS staffing ratings are partly based on how much help residents need with ADLs.
- CCN (CMS Certification Number)
- A six-character ID assigned by CMS to every certified nursing facility. Persists across ownership changes and is the canonical identifier in federal data.
- CMS
- The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the federal agency that certifies and inspects nursing facilities and publishes the Five-Star Quality Rating data.
- Five-Star rating
- CMS's quality scoring system, ranging from 1 ('much below average') to 5 stars ('much above average'). Composed of three sub-ratings: health inspection, staffing, and quality measures.
- Health inspection rating
- CMS rating based on the last three annual surveys plus complaint investigations, weighted toward the most recent survey.
- HPRD (Hours per resident day)
- Average number of nursing care hours each resident receives per day. CMS publishes this for registered nurses (RN), licensed practical nurses (LPN), and certified nursing assistants (CNA) separately.
- Medicare vs Medicaid
- Medicare is federal health insurance primarily for adults 65+ and covers limited skilled nursing stays. Medicaid is joint federal-state coverage for low-income individuals and covers long-term nursing home care.
- Quality measures (QM) rating
- CMS rating based on 15 clinical outcomes including hospital readmissions, falls, weight loss, and pain management.
- Resident
- A person who lives at a skilled nursing facility, as opposed to a short-stay patient receiving post-acute care.
- Skilled nursing facility (SNF)
- A licensed facility providing 24/7 medical care and rehabilitation. Typically used for short-term recovery after a hospital stay, but also for long-term residents who need ongoing medical care.
- Special Focus Facility (SFF)
- CMS designation for facilities with a sustained record of serious quality problems. SFFs are inspected twice as often as standard facilities and are publicly flagged.
- Staffing rating
- CMS rating based on RN, LPN, and CNA hours per resident day, adjusted for resident acuity.