Utah · Long-Term Care · 2026
How to Choose a Nursing Home in Utah (2026): Star Ratings, Staffing & What to Ask on the Tour
Most families choose a nursing home in about 72 hours, under pressure, from a hospital discharge planner's list. Here's how to do it with your eyes open.
The bottom line
- Utah has 98 certified nursing facilities — a number that hasn't grown since 2016 (KFF analysis of Nursing Home Compare, July 2025).
- The CMS overall star rating starts with health inspections, then moves up or down based on staffing and quality measures. Read the three domains separately.
- Ratings are graded against other homes in the same state, so a Utah 5-star is a Utah comparison — not a national one.
- A Utah nursing home runs about $275/day semi-private and $350/day private (CareScout 2024), and Medicare pays for none of it once care stops being skilled.
- The tour matters more than the brochure. Go twice, and go once on a weekend evening.
Almost nobody shops for a nursing home calmly. It usually happens after a fall, a stroke, or a hospitalization, when a discharge planner hands over a printed list and asks for a decision by Friday. That's exactly why it's worth spending 20 minutes on this now, while nothing is on fire — because the two or three things that actually predict a good experience are not the things the brochures lead with.
How many nursing homes does Utah have — and why supply matters
Utah had 98 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing facilities as of July 2025, according to KFF's analysis of CMS Nursing Home Compare data. That count has barely moved in a decade: 99 in 2015, 102 in 2018, and 98 in every year from 2021 through 2025. Nationally the number of certified facilities fell from about 15,600 in 2018 to roughly 14,742 in 2025.
Practical translation: in Salt Lake or Utah County you may have a genuine choice among several homes. In rural Utah — San Juan, Emery, Millard, Duchesne — the realistic list can be one or two facilities, sometimes an hour or more from family. That's a planning fact, not a scare tactic. It's a strong argument for touring before there's a crisis, and for building a plan that can pay for care at home first if that's what you'd prefer.
Sources: KFF State Health Facts, Total Number of Certified Nursing Facilities (KFF analysis of Nursing Home Compare, data as of July 2025); U.S. Administration for Community Living, How Much Care Will You Need?; CareScout (Genworth) Cost of Care Survey 2024, Utah.
What the CMS five-star rating actually measures
Every certified nursing home in Utah carries a star rating on Medicare Care Compare. Most families glance at the overall number and move on. The overall star is a composite, and knowing how it's assembled tells you where to look.
CMS starts with the health-inspection rating and adjusts from there: add one star if the staffing rating is 4 or 5 and higher than the inspection rating, subtract one star if staffing is 1 star; add one star if quality measures rate 5, subtract one if they rate 1. So a home with a mediocre inspection history can land at 4 stars overall on the strength of staffing and self-reported measures — which is useful information, but it is not the same as a clean inspection record.
| Domain | What it measures | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Health inspections | Findings from the state survey team's standard inspections plus complaint investigations, weighted by how serious and how widespread each deficiency was. | This is the anchor. The overall star rating starts as the health-inspection rating, then moves up or down from there. Ratings are set against other homes in the same state, so a Utah 4-star is 4-star compared with Utah homes. |
| Staffing | Nurse and nurse-aide hours per resident per day, case-mix adjusted, plus how often the home's staffing falls short on weekends and holidays. | Adds a star if the home rates 4 or 5 and beats its inspection rating; subtracts a star if it rates 1. It is also the number most closely tied to day-to-day quality of life. |
| Quality measures | Clinical outcomes drawn from resident assessments and claims data — falls with injury, pressure ulcers, hospital readmissions, medication use, and more. | Adds a star at 5, subtracts one at 1. Useful, but partly self-reported, so weigh it alongside inspections and staffing rather than on its own. |
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Five-Star Quality Rating System.
Two things changed recently — and they move the stars
Ratings are not a fixed yardstick, so a screenshot you saved last year may not reflect today's methodology:
- Beginning with the July 2025 refresh, CMS calculates the health-inspection domain from the two most recent standard health inspection surveys instead of the three most recent. Older problems age out faster now — and so do older improvements.
- Beginning with the January 2026 refresh, CMS replaced the long-stay antipsychotic-medication quality measure with a respecified version that pulls in Medicare and Medicaid claims and Medicare Advantage encounter data, with homes scored into deciles.
Source: CMS, Five-Star Quality Rating System.
The numbers that matter more than the overall star
Once you've narrowed the list, open each home's Care Compare profile and look past the headline:
Total nurse staffing hours per resident per day
Care Compare publishes reported staffing hours per resident per day, broken out for registered nurses, LPNs, and nurse aides, and case-mix adjusted so homes with sicker residents aren't penalized. Compare each finalist against the Utah and national averages shown on the same page. Then ask a question the profile can't answer: what does staffing look like at 7 p.m. on a Saturday?
Weekend staffing and staff turnover
CMS also posts weekend staffing levels and annual nursing-staff turnover. High turnover is one of the most honest signals available — residents with dementia in particular do better with caregivers who know them, and a home churning through aides will struggle no matter how nice the lobby is.
The inspection narrative, not just the count
Click into the health-inspection results and read what the deficiencies actually were. "Failed to post the menu correctly" and "failed to prevent an avoidable pressure ulcer" both show up as citations. Their weight in the rating differs, and so should their weight in your decision.
Ownership and recent changes
Care Compare lists ownership and whether the facility changed hands recently. A change of ownership often precedes changes in staffing and management, which is worth asking about directly.
What it costs — and who actually pays
Nursing care is the most expensive setting in the long-term care ladder, which is why it's worth confirming that a nursing home is the right level of care, not just the available one. Utah medians from the CareScout (Genworth) Cost of Care Survey 2024:
| Type of care (Utah, 2024) | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted living | $4,685 | $56,220 |
| Home health aide (44 hrs/wk) | $7,245 | $86,944 |
| Nursing home (semi-private) | $8,365 | $100,375 |
| Nursing home (private) | $10,646 | $127,750 |
Median annual cost of care in Utah by setting, 2024. Source: CareScout (Genworth) Cost of Care Survey 2024 — carescout.com/cost-of-care. Nationally, CareScout reported the median semi-private nursing home room reached $315 a day, or $114,975 a year, in its 2025 survey.
Who pays depends entirely on what kind of care it is. Medicare can cover up to about 100 days in a skilled nursing facility after a qualifying hospital stay — and only while skilled care is required, which in practice is often far short of 100 days. Once care becomes custodial, Medicare stops. From there it's private savings, a long-term care or hybrid life/LTC policy, annuity or pension income, or Medicaid for those who meet Utah's income and asset rules. See Medicare.gov and Utah Medicaid.
One question worth asking every home on your list: are you certified for both Medicare and Medicaid, and do you accept Medicaid for existing residents who spend down? A home that takes private pay but not Medicaid can mean a forced move later, at the worst possible moment.
We help Utah families think through how care would actually get paid for — savings, insurance, income, and Medicaid as a backstop. Educational, no pressure.
Talk to a planner →What to ask on the tour
Go twice. Once on a weekday morning when the home is at its best, and once unannounced on a weekend evening or around a mealtime, when staffing is thinnest. Bring this list:
- Staffing: How many aides are on this hall right now? On nights? On weekends? What was your nurse turnover last year?
- Continuity: Will my parent see the same aides most days, or does assignment rotate?
- Medical: Who is the attending physician, how often do they round, and can we keep our own doctor?
- Payment: What's the private-pay daily rate, what's excluded from it, and what happens if we spend down to Medicaid?
- Discharge: Under what circumstances would you discharge or transfer a resident?
- Dementia: If memory care is needed later, is it available here or does it require a move?
- Life: Can residents get up and eat when they want? What happened here last Tuesday afternoon?
- Ask a family member: Find someone visiting and ask what they wish they'd known.
And notice what you notice. Call lights ringing unanswered, a persistent odor, residents parked in a hallway with nothing happening, staff talking over residents rather than to them — those observations are data too.
If something goes wrong later
Utah runs a Long-Term Care Ombudsman program through Aging & Adult Services. Ombudsmen advocate for residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and they investigate complaints about resident rights, care, abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Anyone can file — the resident, a relative, a friend, even facility staff — and the state's resident-rights complaint form is online. Local ombudsmen are assigned through area agencies on aging, so Salt Lake County, Mountainland (Utah, Wasatch, Summit), and rural districts each have their own contact.
Source: Utah Department of Health & Human Services, Aging & Adult Services — Long-Term Care Ombudsman and Resident Rights Complaint Form.
Frequently asked questions
How many nursing homes are there in Utah?
Utah had 98 certified nursing facilities as of July 2025, according to KFF's analysis of CMS Nursing Home Compare data. That number has been essentially flat since 2016 while the state's 65-plus population has grown, so the home you want may not have a bed on the day you need one.
What is a good CMS star rating for a nursing home?
Four and five stars mean above-average and much-above-average quality compared with other homes in the same state. But do not stop at the overall star. Open the staffing rating and the health-inspection detail separately — a home can hold a decent overall rating while carrying a weak inspection history or thin weekend staffing.
How much does a nursing home cost in Utah?
About $100,375 a year for a semi-private room and about $127,750 a year for a private room, per the CareScout (Genworth) Cost of Care Survey 2024 for Utah — roughly $275 and $350 a day.
Will Medicare pay for the nursing home I choose?
Only for short, skilled care. Medicare can cover up to about 100 days in a skilled nursing facility after a qualifying hospital stay, and only while skilled care is needed. Ongoing custodial care is paid privately, by long-term care insurance, or by Medicaid for those who qualify.
Who do I call if something goes wrong after move-in?
Utah's Long-Term Care Ombudsman program advocates for residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities and investigates complaints — anyone can file, including family and staff. Reports can be submitted through Utah Aging & Adult Services at daas.utah.gov.
Should I pick a home near me or near my family?
Whichever address gets someone through the door most often. Visit frequency is the single best informal quality-control system a resident has, and along the Wasatch Front the difference between a 10-minute drive and a 45-minute drive can decide whether visits happen weekly or monthly.
Sources
- KFF State Health Facts — Total Number of Certified Nursing Facilities (KFF analysis of Nursing Home Compare, July 2025): kff.org
- CMS — Five-Star Quality Rating System: cms.gov
- Medicare Care Compare — find and compare nursing homes: medicare.gov/care-compare
- Medicare — skilled nursing facility (SNF) care: medicare.gov
- U.S. Administration for Community Living — How Much Care Will You Need?: acl.gov
- CareScout (Genworth) Cost of Care Survey 2024 — Utah: carescout.com/cost-of-care
- Utah DHHS Aging & Adult Services — Long-Term Care Ombudsman: daas.utah.gov
- Utah Medicaid: medicaid.utah.gov
About this article. Written by the Utah Retirement Income Data Desk and reviewed by Brian Penner, Retirement income & long-term care planner. Educational only — not financial, tax, legal, or medical advice. Utah Retirement Income is a licensed independent insurance agency (NPN 16493717) and is not connected with or endorsed by any government agency, including Medicare or Medicaid. Insurance and annuity guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing company; product availability and rates vary. Cost figures are medians and will differ by facility and level of care.