The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to create an online rating system for nursing homes.  CMS would start publishing “five-star ratings” on its Web site in December 2008.  The goal is to make it easier for consumers to compare the quality of nursing home before deciding on one. Get details. Foley & Lardner has prepared a summary of the proposal you can read here. The CMS already operates a nursing home comparison site, but does not provide overall ratings. It does provide information such as total number of health deficiencies, fire safety deficiencies, and nursing staff hours per resident per day.