Primary filing
Taken directly from a government file as submitted by the filer. We reproduce it; we do not verify that the filer was truthful.
Example. A CMS ownership record naming an owning entity and its percentage interest.
Standards
Methodology
This is the standard applied to every TechStack Data product. It is published in full, in one place, so that a finding means the same thing on every site we operate and so that disagreement with us can be specific.
The short version. We reproduce what public filings say, we link filings to each other using published rules, we label how strong the resulting evidence is, we date everything to the file edition it came from, and when sources conflict we publish the conflict instead of resolving it silently.
The five evidence classes
Every value we publish carries one of these classes, and the class travels with the value into reports, exports and datasets. A calculated figure never appears in the same visual register as a retrieved one, because they do not deserve the same trust.
Resolved
Derived by linking two or more primary filings through shared identifiers, shared officers, declared parent relationships or portfolio containment. The linking rule is published and the inputs are cited.
Example. Sixty separately filed operating entities resolved into one corporate family.
Calculated
Computed from primary or resolved values using a published formula. The inputs and assumptions are shown alongside the result.
Example. A debt-service coverage indicator derived from stated earnings and an assumed rate.
Claimed
Asserted by an interested party and not independently supported. It stays labelled as a claim until a document supports it. A claim never silently becomes a fact.
Example. Owner-stated revenue in a business-for-sale listing.
Unresolved
Missing, stale, or in genuine conflict between sources. We say so rather than choosing. Unresolved evidence lowers coverage and generates a specific follow-up question.
Example. Two filings naming different owners for the same period, with no tiebreaker.
A claim never silently becomes a fact. Where a party with an interest in the outcome asserts a figure, that figure stays classed as Claimed until a document supports it. Seller-stated earnings in a listing and owner-stated percentages in a filing are both claims, however confidently they are written.
Confidence bands
Evidence class describes a single value. Confidence describes a conclusion drawn across several values, such as a resolved corporate family. The two are reported separately, because strong conclusions can rest on thin evidence and that is exactly what a reader needs to see.
| Band | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Verified | Documentary evidence meets the highest coverage standard across the whole grouping, with no unreconciled conflicts. |
| Supported | Multiple independent filings agree, but coverage is incomplete somewhere in the grouping. |
| Indicated | A single filing supports the conclusion and nothing contradicts it. |
| Disputed | Sources genuinely disagree. Both readings are published; neither is chosen. |
A high score on one dimension never compensates for weakness on another. A deal that scores well on economics but poorly on evidence coverage is reported as exactly that, not averaged into a single reassuring number.
Resolving entities into corporate families
Government files record owners as separate legal entities and provide no grouping key. One operator running sixty buildings can appear as sixty unrelated companies, and nothing in the file indicates otherwise. Resolving that is the core technical work behind WhoOwnsCare.
Entities are linked using four signals, in order of strength:
- Shared registered identifiers across filings.
- Shared officers or authorised officials named on multiple filings.
- Declared parent relationships asserted in the filing itself.
- Portfolio containment, where one entity's holdings are wholly contained in another's.
The rule that produced a grouping is published with the grouping, along with its inputs. Where the signals conflict, the entity remains unresolved rather than being forced into a family.
Six roles, kept distinct
The company that runs a facility, the entity that holds its licence, the company that owns the building and the institution that lent against it are frequently four different businesses. Collapsing them is how a real-estate trust ends up ranked as a large operator and a bank appears to run seventeen facilities.
| Role | Definition |
|---|---|
| Facility | The certified provider or the operating business itself. |
| Operator | The enrolled entity actually running it. |
| Operating family | The group that controls the operator. Resolved, not filed. |
| Legal parent | A corporate parent evidenced by securities or tax filings. |
| Property owner | The real-estate interest. Never treated as an operator. |
| Lender | A recorded capital interest. Never treated as an operator. |
A legal parent never replaces the operating-family boundary. The two answer different questions and are reported separately.
Dating and vintage
Every page states the edition of every file it drew on. Government files are republished on irregular schedules, and an ownership answer that was correct against one edition can be wrong against the next. A figure without an as-of date is not a finding.
Periods that straddle a recorded ownership change are attributed to neither party. Splitting them would invent precision the filings do not contain.
When sources disagree
Genuine conflicts between filings are published as conflicts. Both readings are shown, with their sources, and the conclusion is banded as Disputed. We do not pick the more plausible reading and present it as settled, and we do not average them.
Missing evidence is reported as missing. A facility with no filed cost report is reported as unscored, never as zero, and unscored records are excluded from distributions rather than silently dragging them down.
What we do not claim
- We do not verify that filers told the truth. We verify that we read and linked their filings correctly.
- Acquisition analysis describes temporal association, not causation.
- Nothing published is an appraisal, audit, quality-of-earnings opinion, legal or tax advice, or a lending decision.
- Nothing published may be used for any purpose covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Source catalogue
Each dataset is documented with its publisher, licence, edition and known limits.
- CMS Provider Ownership Files
- PECOS Enrollment
- CMS Change of Ownership (CHOW)
- HCRIS Cost Reports
- U.S. Census Bureau: geography, demographics and business patterns
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and wages
- Bureau of Economic Analysis: regional accounts
Corrections
Confidence levels, evidence classes and file vintages are published on every page precisely so that disagreement can be specific. If you believe something is wrong, email corrections@techstackllc.io with the record identifier. Every request is logged and answered within two business days. Full corrections policy.