How we grade
One public rule for every home.
Every home on Miami Placement gets a letter grade from its own public inspection record at Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Our server applies the same rule to every home. Nobody here changes a grade by hand, for any home, including Mary's House ALF, which I run.
Read what the video says
When a family starts looking for assisted living, one of the first questions is simple.
Is this a good place?
Florida inspects every licensed assisted living home and posts what it finds.
But those reports are long, technical, and hard to read on a bad night.
And counting problems can be misleading.
A home with three paperwork items can look worse than a home with one serious one.
That isn't fair to the home, and it doesn't help the family.
I'm Jorge Recarey.
I'm a licensed assisted living administrator, and I run a small home in Cutler Bay.
I've been through these inspections myself.
So we built a grade that reads the state's record the way someone in the field would.
Here's how it works.
Every item the state cites has a class.
The more serious the class, the more points it counts.
A danger to a resident counts the most.
A paperwork item counts the least.
Fines and other legal actions count too.
We only look at recent history.
Items from the last three years, and legal actions from the last five.
Older history drops off.
A home is judged on how it runs today.
And we reward improvement.
When a home's latest routine inspection comes back clean, everything before it counts half.
The points become a letter.
A, B or C, based on points and how serious the items were.
D means the license is suspended or not active.
N means the home is new and hasn't had its first routine inspection yet.
Every grade shows the date of the state record it came from, and a link to that record, so anyone can check it.
The full rule is published on our site, in English and Spanish.
The same rule applies to every home.
That includes the home I run.
Nobody at Miami Placement changes a grade by hand, for any reason.
And no home can pay to move up the list.
Grades never change the order homes appear in.
Every night we check every home's license with the state, and every home's full inspection record is pulled again at least once a week.
Before any grade changes, the system checks that the state's data still looks right.
If something looks off, it keeps the last good grades instead of guessing.
If a home thinks its grade is wrong, it can ask for a recheck.
That night we pull its record from the state again and run the same rule.
If the state's record changes, the grade changes with it.
A grade isn't a rating of the care, the staff or how a home feels.
It's a clear, fair summary of the public record, so families can ask better questions and good homes get the credit they've earned.
Visit a home.
Meet the people.
And use the grade as one tool to help you decide.
Miami Placement.
One fair rule for every home.
Read how it works at MiamiPlacement.com.
Where it comes from
- AHCA inspects every assisted living home. When an inspector finds something that doesn't meet Florida's rules, AHCA writes it up and gives it a class from I, the most serious, to IV, the least.
- We pull each home's record from AHCA's public website, and every home is pulled again at least once a week.
- Every grade shows the date of the record it came from, and links to that record so you can read it yourself.
How points add up
We look at the last 3 years of inspections and the last 5 years of fines or other legal actions. Anything older doesn't count.
| Item | What it means | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Class I | A resident was in danger | 12 |
| Class II | Harm or likely harm to a resident | 6 |
| Class III | A minor item with indirect risk | 2 |
| Class IV or unclassified | Paperwork or procedure | 1 |
| Fine or legal action | From the last 5 years | 8 |
Credit for a clean inspection
AHCA visits every home for a routine inspection. If a home's most recent routine inspection came back with no deficiencies, every item from before it counts half. Follow-up visits, when AHCA comes back to confirm something was fixed, are not routine inspections and don't count for this.
The grades
- A No Class I or II items, 6 points or fewer, and no fines or legal actions.
- B No Class I items, no more than one Class II item, 14 points or fewer, and no more than one fine or legal action.
- C Anything more than B.
- D The license is suspended, inactive, or its renewal is pending denial.
- N A new license. The home hasn't had its first routine inspection yet, so there's nothing to grade.
A few more rules
- A license "in review" at AHCA, which usually means a renewal AHCA hasn't finished, doesn't count against a home.
- Homes in a legal case with AHCA are graded on their record like every other home.
- When a home changes owners, its record stays with the license, the way AHCA keeps it.
- Grades never change the order homes are listed in. You can filter by grade if you want to.
What a grade is, and what it isn't
- It's a summary of a home's public inspection record, by a published rule, on a stated date.
- It isn't a rating of the care, the staff or how a home feels, and it isn't a recommendation. Visit, ask questions, and read the record.
- A home can disagree with something AHCA wrote, and homes inspected more often can collect more items. That's why every grade links to the full record.
If the home that fits has a C
- Many licensed homes in South Florida have a C. Inspectors look closely, and a C can come from one serious item or from several smaller ones.
- Budget, Medicaid, the care someone needs and who has a bed open can narrow things fast. Sometimes the home that fits has a C. That doesn't mean stay away. It means look closer.
- Open the record. See what was cited, when, and whether the latest inspection was clean.
- Ask the home what happened and what changed. How they answer tells you a lot.
- Visit. Meet the caregivers, ask who is there at night, and watch how they treat the people who live there.
▶ Watch the video
Read what the video says
When you're looking for assisted living, you don't always get to pick from everything.
Your budget, the care your loved one needs, Medicaid, the area you need to be in, and who has a bed open this week can narrow things down fast.
Sometimes the home that fits is a home with a C.
A C doesn't mean stay away.
It means look closer.
Our grades come from the state's public inspection record for the last three years.
A C can come from one serious item, or from several smaller ones.
Some items are serious.
Others are about paperwork or procedure.
So open the record.
Every grade links to it.
Look at what was cited, and when.
Was it fixed?
Was the latest inspection clean?
Then ask the home.
What happened, and what did you change?
How they answer tells you a lot.
And visit.
Meet the caregivers.
Ask who's there at night.
Watch how they talk to the people who live there.
A grade can't tell you any of that.
Only a visit can.
I run a home, and I know how inspections work.
They're a snapshot.
A grade is a summary of that snapshot, not a rating of the care.
It's one tool, not the answer.
Whatever the grade, we'll help you know what to ask.
MiamiPlacement.com.
How a home moves up
- Get a clean routine inspection. Every older item then counts half.
- Avoid new items and fines.
- Give it time. Items drop off after 3 years, and fines after 5.
- If AHCA withdraws or changes an item after its own review, the grade changes with it automatically.
If a home thinks its grade is wrong
We don't change grades by request or by judgment, for anyone. A home can ask for a recheck from its account. That night our server pulls the home's record from AHCA again and grades it by the same rule. If our copy of the record was wrong, the recheck fixes it. If AHCA's record hasn't changed, the grade stays the same. Only AHCA can change what's in its record.
Version 3 of this rule, in use since October 17, 2026.