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Here are among the best and worst Lowcountry nursing homes in 2025, a new report shows

By Anna Claire Miller

May 6, 2025 6:00 AM

Which are the best and worst rated nursing homes? We’ve rounded them up. Kampus Production

In the Lowcountry, the quality of elder care can vary dramatically from one zip code to the next, heightening the anxiety for families and loved ones trying to select the right place for senior care.

This already complicated and costly task can easily become overwhelming when comparing the best place for your loved one to stay.

With a handful of locations to choose from in the Lowcountry area, it’s important to recognize where some facilities fall short.

As South Carolina’s aging population grows, the need for transparency in long-term care has never been more urgent. Luckily, there are a few systems in place to help determine the quality of care and life at nursing facilities.

Since 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has conducted an enhanced five-star rating system for nursing homes in the United States, with 187 facilities examined in the Palmetto State.

How are facilities graded?

The CMS rating system is based on staffing, health inspections and quality measures of each facility. CMS examines all facilities that accept payments from Medicaid and Medicare.

According to CMS, nursing homes that participate in the Medicare or Medicaid programs have an onsite inspection at least once every 15 months. Inspections are unannounced and conducted by health care professionals who spend several days in the nursing home to assess whether the nursing home is in compliance with federal requirements.

Criteria that these inspectors factor into their grading include:

Facility practice
Facility policies
Resident rights
Quality of life
Medication management
Skin care
Resident assessment
Nursing home administration
Environment
Kitchen/food services
Total staffing
RN staffing
Staff Turnover

How are facilities scored?

The ratings take the form of several “star” ratings for each nursing home, CMS states. The intention of this scoring system is for easy understanding and performance evaluation for these facilities.

Here’s how the star system works:

1 star: Much below average
2 stars: Below average
3 stars: Average
4 stars: Above average
5 stars: Much above average

The five-star quality rating system is determined by using nearly 400,000 records for the health inspection domain alone, according to CMS. The scores are based on the three most recent surveys for each nursing home, complaint deficiencies, infection control and any repeat inspections.

Fire safety inspections and emergency preparedness data are also incorporated into the grading system.

CMS notes that “no rating system can address all of the important considerations that go into a decision about which nursing home may be best for a particular person.”

These quality measures are based on the average level of a nursing home’s performance in certain areas of care for all the residents in a facility and don’t detail a single resident’s experience, according to CMS.

In 2025, scores were first posted in January, with the most recent data update conducted on April 30.

There are 21 facilities from Savannah to Beaufort that were scored by CMS this April. Here are the best – and the worst – facilities for elder care in the Lowcountry region: