The need to move a loved one into a nursing home or assisted living facility often comes suddenly — after a fall, a medical crisis or the loss of a caregiver.

But some facilities that have had coronavirus cases and deaths turn up as having none on Medicare's COVID-19 nursing home website. The biggest thing that needs to be taken away ... is in its current form, it is really leaving consumers in the dark, Sam Brooks, project manager for Consumer Voice, said of Medicare's data website. Nursing homes are only now starting to emerge from a national lockdown that took effect in mid-March. Instead, a link takes users to a different COVID-19 site that features statistics and a national nursing home locator map. Finding information on individual nursing homes via the data website can be confusing.