When a nursing home loses the High Performing Facility icon: the removal plan to write before you post anything
The CMS High Performing Facility icon stays on Care Compare only while a facility remains eligible, and the list rebuilds quarterly. What removes it, how the lag between CMS and state lists works, and the 72-hour plan for pulling your marketing without a scramble.
The CMS High Performing Facility icon is a status, and statuses end. The memo that created it says so in one line: the icon “will remain on the nursing home’s profile page until the facility is no longer eligible.”
Most facilities will write the announcement first and the removal plan never. Write the removal plan first. It takes an hour, and it’s what lets you promote the icon confidently everywhere instead of nervously in one place.
The two ways to lose it
The quarterly rebuild. CMS recompiles the qualifying list every quarter from 11 criteria. Slip on any one, and you’re off the next list. The ones most likely to move between quarters: a health inspection score that crosses the state median, a staffing rating that drops below 3 stars, a change in ownership, or 18 months passing without a standard survey. The full list is in our criteria guide.
Disqualification before the survey. Appendix C of the memo lists 5 events that knock a listed facility off before its Risk-Based Survey even starts, and convert the visit into a full standard survey:
- A citation for actual harm, immediate jeopardy, abuse at any level, or substandard quality of care on an intake investigation while listed.
- A pending intake investigation triaged at immediate jeopardy.
- More than 3 pending non-IJ intakes triaged medium or higher.
- CMS-approved nursing waivers.
- A change in ownership since the last standard survey.
Number 3 deserves attention. Four open complaints at medium severity, none of them substantiated yet, is enough. Complaint volume is partly a family-communication problem, and that’s within your control.
The lag runs both directions
CMS is candid that “there will be differences between the facilities identified on the lists sent to states and facilities with the icon on the Nursing Home Care Compare website.” Data transmission and posting take time.
So you might lose eligibility on the state’s list while Care Compare still shows the trophy for weeks. Or the reverse. For marketing, the rule is simple: Care Compare is what families see, so Care Compare governs what you display. Check it, screenshot it, date it.
The inventory
You can only pull what you can find. Before the first announcement, log every place the claim lives:
- Website: facility page, network page, any landing page.
- Google Business Profile: description, posts.
- Social: pinned posts, bios, highlight reels, per facility.
- Print: lobby piece, admissions insert, brochure, referral sheet.
- Email: signatures, newsletter templates, automated sequences.
- Third parties: referral platform profiles, hospital partner materials, PR.
Each entry gets a location, an owner, and the date it went live. This log is the removal checklist. Without it, removal is an archaeology project.
The 72-hour plan
When a building drops off, in order:
Hour 0 to 4. Confirm on Care Compare. Screenshot. Note the date.
Day 1. Digital comes down: website module, Google description and posts, social bios and pins. These are the surfaces a family or a hospital compliance officer will check against Care Compare.
Day 2. Hospital partners hear it from you, before they notice. A short note from the administrator: status changed, what you’re doing about it, referral sheet withdrawn. Planners respect that. They punish the alternative.
Day 3. Print gets pulled and replaced. Current families get a plain note if the icon was part of how you communicated with them.
Wording that survives removal
There’s one construction that stays true after the icon leaves: the historical fact.
“Qualified for CMS’s Risk-Based Survey in Q4 2026” is true forever. “Recognized as a High Performing Facility” in the present tense is true only while the trophy shows. Build the dated version into everything from day one, and removal becomes an edit instead of a retraction.
Who owns it
One person, named. Their job is a quarterly check of Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog for every building, a confirmed log, and the 72-hour plan when needed. In a 3-building operation that’s the administrator. In a 20-building network it’s a marketing role, and it’s exactly the kind of recurring, unglamorous accuracy work that separates operators who can promote recognition from operators who can’t.
At MOZART&CO. this lives in the Marketing Hub: every facility’s icon status, verification date, and the materials tied to it, flagged the day anything changes. It’s why the recognition campaign is sold as a launch plus a quarterly relationship, and why a monitored claim is one you can put in the lobby.
If you’d rather someone else own the quarterly check, inquire.
Frequently asked questions
- What removes the CMS High Performing Facility icon?
- Failing any of the 11 qualifying criteria at the quarterly rebuild, or one of the 5 disqualifiers in Appendix C before the survey: a harm, immediate jeopardy, abuse, or substandard care citation on an intake investigation while listed, a pending intake triaged at immediate jeopardy, more than 3 pending non-IJ intakes triaged medium or higher, CMS-approved nursing waivers, or a change in ownership since the last standard survey.
- How fast does Care Compare update when a facility loses eligibility?
- CMS says the list posts beginning September 30, 2026 and is updated regularly, and the memo warns there will be differences between the lists sent to states and the icons shown on Care Compare because of data transmission and posting delays. Expect lag in both directions, and treat Care Compare as what families see.
- Do we have to remove the icon from our marketing if we lose it?
- The CMS memo does not regulate facility marketing. Accuracy does. Every claim should carry a date, and once the status changes the live present-tense claims come down within days. Claims written as dated historical facts, such as qualified for the Risk-Based Survey in Q4 2026, stay true.
- How do we monitor the icon status?
- One named owner checks Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog for every building each quarter, confirms a log of every place the claim lives, and runs the 72-hour plan when a building drops off. MOZART&CO. tracks status, verification date, and linked materials in the Marketing Hub and flags changes.
Your rating is a revenue number.
Families read reviews before they ever call. A half-star difference in your rating changes how many tours you book, which makes reputation one of the most direct levers on census you have.