Nursing Home Database

Nursing Home Database — MCP

Public documentation for the Nursing Home Database Model Context Protocol server. It exposes US skilled nursing facility search, detail, ownership, and owner portfolio data — including CMS nurse hours, turnover, and inspection scores — to AI assistants and other MCP clients.

Website: nursinghomedatabase.com Contact: Contact page

MCP endpoint

Send a standard MCP session: initialize → notifications/initialized (optional; may receive HTTP 204) → tools/list → tools/call as needed.

Tools

Exact inputSchema objects are returned in tools/list.

Historical months (filedate)

By default every lookup uses the latest CMS monthly file. To retrieve a prior month:

1. Call list_file_dates (returns current, filedates newest first, and known_gaps for unpublished months).
2. Pass one of those dates as filedate (YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM) on search_facilities, search_facilities_by_ownership, summarize_facilities, compare_facilities, get_facility, get_facility_ownership, search_owners, get_owner, or list_distinct_values. get_facility_changes does not take filedate; pass from and to.

CMS snapshots are stored as the first of the month (YYYY-MM-01). A value like 2026-07 or 2026-07-15 is normalized to 2026-07-01. Unknown dates return a validation error — call list_file_dates rather than guessing.

search_facilities

Finds certified SNFs near an address so you can shortlist more than three homes using hours, turnover, and inspection scores. You can also search by name, city, state, or ZIP.

If the supplied address cannot be resolved, the API returns an address-specific validation error.

Facility payload (search and detail)

search_facilities (each items[] row) and get_facility (facility) return the same richer object, so a shortlist does not require a detail call per home.

Identity, location, and CMS star ratings are included (provnum, web, provname, lbn, address, city, state, zip, latitude, longitude, phone, overall_rating, survey_rating, quality_rating, staffing_rating, public urls). Decision fields use CMS keys:

Distance (straight-line miles, not driving minutes)

When search_facilities is called with address:

• distance_miles is straight-line Haversine miles from that origin to the facility.
• distance is kept as an alias of the same number.

These values are not driving minutes or road miles. For driving minutes, use maps.google_dir / maps.apple_dir on the row, or pass the coordinates to a mapping tool.

Sort keys

Pass sort on search_facilities (and on GET /api/v1/nh/facilities). Default is overall_rating (stars, descending) when sort is omitted. Use sort=distance for nearest-first when searching from an address.

search_facilities_by_ownership

Same result schema as search_facilities, with ownership required. Use this when the question is “find government / nonprofit / for-profit homes in …”. Combine with state, city, zip, or address. Call list_distinct_values with field=ownership first for the exact CMS strings.

summarize_facilities

Aggregate numeric CMS ProviderInfo fields across certified SNFs. Prefer this over paging search_facilities for national or grouped stats (government vs private hours, state means, etc.). Means are facility-equal (not bed-weighted). Facilities missing a metric are excluded from that metric’s n/mean/min/max only — values are not imputed. Not causal. Not a substitute for get_facility on a named home.

REST: GET /api/v1/nh/facilities/summary?metrics=tothrd,rnhrd&group_by=ownership_kind&include_median=true

Response groups[] each have group_key, group_label, facilities_in_group, and stats keyed by canonical metric (n, mean, min, max, optional median, unit). facilities_in_scope is the filter-matched count; per-metric n is the non-null count in that group. Unknown metric keys return invalid_metric with the allowed list.

0% / 100% turnover and near-zero HPRD can be reporting artifacts.

list_distinct_values

Lists distinct CMS ProviderInfo values and row counts for a field in the active monthly snapshot. Omit field to see the allowed field catalog. field=city requires state.

compare_facilities

Same decision fields as search_facilities, for up to 25 CMS provider numbers or web slugs, on one snapshot. Ids past 25 are dropped. This is not a month-to-month diff; use get_facility_changes for that.

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