How we rate facilities

Facility licensing, inspection, and complaint data are drawn from official public records published by each state’s licensing authority. Each source provides a facility roster and per-facility inspection reports — including visit dates, deficiency citations, inspector narratives, and complaint outcomes, where available.

Data is refreshed via automated scrapers; production runs target a weekly cadence on CI/CD schedules, with facility rows reflecting the latest successful ingest in updated_at. See also the dataset page.

StarlynnCare currently publishes inspection data for 1,461 facilities across 5 states, with coverage expanding as we ingest new state licensing data.

• California — licensed RCFEs across California, covering counties statewide including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and the Central Valley.
• Minnesota — 552 licensed assisted living facilities (ALDC and AL).
• Oregon — 244 licensed residential care facilities and memory care communities.
• Washington — 180 licensed assisted living facilities and adult family homes.
• Texas — early coverage expanding; 1 facility published to date as ingest ramps up.

Only facilities with an active state license and at least one published inspection record are shown. Facilities missing key data fields are held back until the next ingest run resolves them.

Benchmarks and peer sets are recomputed dynamically as coverage expands. Percentile thresholds will shift as more facilities are added within each state.

The following applies to California facilities; analogous capacity and dementia-care distinctions exist in other states, with state-specific thresholds and regulatory designations. California’s RCFE licensing regulations create two natural axes for organizing facilities that we use on every California city and county listing page.

Axis 1 — Capacity tier

The ≤6-bed threshold in HSC §1569.2 is the regulatory line that separates residential board-and-care homes from larger facilities:

• ≤ 6 beds (“small”)— Typically a single-family home converted to care use. Owner-operated. These facilities receive fewer routine CDSS inspections by design, so a short inspection history does not mean a good track record — it means less inspector attention. We hide them by default and offer a “Show small care homes” toggle.
• 7–49 beds (“medium”) — Small to medium freestanding RCFEs. Subject to CDSS annual inspection cycle and all Title 22 requirements.
• 50+ beds (“large”) — Community-style facilities, often purpose-built buildings operated by regional or national chains. Typically have a dedicated memory-care wing.

Axis 2 — Memory-care designation

California HSC §1569.627 requires any RCFE that advertises or promotes special care, special programming, or a special environment for persons with dementia to disclose the special features of its program in the plan of operation filed with CDSS. This filing is the canonical regulatory signal that a facility is operating a dementia program — better than relying on what the facility puts on its own website.

Until CDSS publishes a machine-readable list of these filings, we identify memory-care facilities through two proxies: (1) a facility name or licensee name that contains a recognized dementia-program keyword or known memory-care chain name, and (2) any CDSS citation under Title 22 §87705 or §87706 — the dementia-care-specific regulations — which constitutes regulatory confirmation that the facility operates a dementia program.

By default, each listing page shows only 7+ bed facilities with a confirmed memory-care signal. The “Show small care homes (≤6 beds)” toggle on each page reveals the smaller board-and-care segment for families who want it.

Each facility profile shows an “At a glance” panel with four rows. Here is exactly how each is computed.

All numeric metrics are compared against the current county distribution using 33rd and 66th percentile cutoffs. “Strong” means better than most peers; “Concerns” means worse than most peers. These are relative assessments within the current sample, not absolute benchmarks.

A composite score implies that one weighting of metrics is universally correct. It isn't. A family with a parent who has advanced dementia may weight §87705 citations more heavily than a family whose parent is largely independent. A family that has already toured three facilities and spoken to staff may weight a slightly elevated complaint rate differently than the aggregate numbers suggest.

Composite scores also obscure: a facility with one catastrophic Type A event and otherwise clean records will look identical to a facility with a pattern of minor Type B deficiencies if both are averaged into the same number.

We believe four honest signals, clearly labeled, serve families better than one opaque number.

• Inspection records reflect conditions at the time of a specific visit. They are not a real-time assessment of today’s care quality.
• Facilities that have improved since a citation was issued will still show that citation. Corrective action dates are shown where available.
• Percentile thresholds are computed per county and may be sensitive to outliers in counties with few facilities. Tiers may shift as coverage expands.
• StarlynnCare is an information resource, not a licensed placement agency or healthcare provider. Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. Always tour facilities, speak with staff, and consult a licensed care advisor before making placement decisions.