Where The Data Comes From.
demandPILOT combines three public signals and sorts every facility into eight call-priority groups. Here is where each signal comes from, how often it changes, and what it can and can’t tell you.
1. The Federal Nursing Payroll Filing.
What it is. Every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home reports its staffing hours to Medicare from its own payroll, every quarter. demandPILOT holds that filing for all fifty states: 14,487 nursing homes, January to March 2026.
What we take from it. Two signals: an estimated staffing gap (how its reported nursing hours compare with what its residents need, calculated as shown below) and reported agency nursing use (how many of its nursing hours it paid agencies to cover).
How often it changes. Quarterly. Every figure from it is shown with its quarter.
What it can’t tell you. It is a reported, past figure, not today’s schedule. It doesn’t show open shifts, and it doesn’t show whether a facility will buy. Hospitals don’t file it, so these two signals cover nursing homes only.
The public methodology is published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Payroll Based Journal methodology.
Where The Staffing Gap Comes From.
The filing reports hours, not a gap. The gap is our estimate, made by comparing the nursing hours each home reported with Medicare’s own need benchmark: the case-mix expected total nursing hours per resident per day, the hours Medicare’s model expects for that home’s mix of residents and how much care they need. Both figures come from the same Medicare release, the Provider Information file, so they describe the same quarter.
A home at or above its benchmark shows no gap. A home missing either figure, and any facility that is not a certified nursing home, shows no gap rather than a guess. It is an estimate of a past quarter, not a count of open shifts.
2. The Federal Facility Record.
What it is. Medicare’s public record of each certified nursing home and hospital: its name, location, licensed beds and owner. It is the same federal record that publishes each nursing home’s inspection results.
What we take from it. The list of facilities in each market, and the details that describe each one.
What it can’t tell you. Who makes the staffing decisions, or whether they are looking for help. State-licensed assisted living is a separate register in each state and is not part of this record.
3. Job Postings.
What it is. Nursing job ads that facilities and other employers put up in public.
How often it changes. Job postings are checked every week for subscribed markets, with dates shown so you can see how recent they are. The demonstration boards are a fixed snapshot of October 26, 2026.
What it can’t tell you. A posting is an ad, not a confirmed opening. One opening can be advertised more than once, and some ads stay up after the job is filled. A facility with no ads found may still be hiring.
How The Three Fit Together.
demandPILOT puts the three signals side by side for every facility and sorts the facilities into eight call-priority groups, strongest combination first:
- Call Today
- Call This Week
- Worth a Call
- Reported Staffing Gap and Job Postings
- Reported Staffing Gap Without Job Postings
- Job Postings Without a Reported Staffing Gap
- Lower Reported Agency Use
- No Identified Signal
No Identified Signal means none of the three signals shows up for that facility in the sources we checked. It doesn’t mean the facility has no need. It means the public record doesn’t show one right now.
What We Don’t Do.
We don’t treat a signal as a promise of business. The groups tell your team where to start and why; the call is still yours to make. Every reason on the page names its source and its date, so your team can see how recent it is.