About ParentNextStep
Updated October 13, 2026
ParentNextStep helps families answer a hard question: what kind of help does Mom or Dad need now? It's run by Northwoods Ventures LLC, a small independent publisher.
What we do
The care matcher asks a few questions and points each family to one of three next steps: a medical alert, help at home, or a move to assisted living. If you're not sure, a short needs check suggests where to start. Alongside it, we publish Medicare's ratings for every certified nursing home and home health agency, city by city.
Where our numbers come from
- Medical alert prices: 12 plans, priced from each company's own website on monthly billing at regular prices. Each plan shows the date we last checked it, and we recheck every month.
- Nursing homes and home health agencies: Medicare's public data, the same data behind Medicare's Care Compare, refreshed when Medicare updates it. We use Medicare's own ratings and labels and never make up scores. We aren't affiliated with Medicare or CMS.
- City data: GeoNames. We tidy the city names in Medicare's files using the GeoNames postal code data, by ZIP code, from geonames.org (CC BY 4.0).
- Home care and assisted living: prices and openings change too fast for a website, so a free advisor from our partner Caring.com shares current ones near you.
What we promise
- Your answers decide what we suggest, not what we earn.
- Your quiz answers stay in your browser and aren't saved.
- We say how we make money wherever it applies. The details are on why it's free.
- We aren't a medical provider, and nothing here is medical advice. In an emergency, call 911.
Who we are
ParentNextStep is published by Northwoods Ventures LLC, which builds independent reference sites that turn public data into plain answers. Questions, corrections and press requests: support@parentnextstep.com.
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