Skip to main content

QUESTIONS · ANSWERED FROM THE PUBLIC RECORD

Questions about the public record.

What ReadyRule shows, where it comes from, who uses it, and what it costs. Sourced inline.

Grouped by audience: attorneys, operators, insurers, parents, providers, journalists, and ReadyRule itself.

FOR ATTORNEYS

For elder-law and personal-injury attorneys.

How dossiers are sourced, scoped, and turned around for placement vetting and post-incident discovery.

DOSSIER

What is a Compliance Dossier?

A Compliance Dossier is a single PDF that compiles a residential care or licensed-care facility’s public regulatory history into one document a partner can read in ten minutes.

It includes every state inspection visit, citation by Title and section, plan-of-correction status, prior-license history, change-of-ownership lineage, sibling-facility chain, and a sourced summary of the trajectory. Each numeric claim cites the regulator record it came from.

It is shaped like a case-prep document, not a marketing demo. Elder-law and personal-injury firms use it during placement vetting and post-incident discovery.

CCLD Public Records (CA) · State licensing portals (other states)

EVIDENCE

What is the dossier’s evidentiary basis?

Every line in a dossier traces back to the state regulator’s primary record. Visit IDs, citation numbers, dates, and survey reports cite the public source by ID, with the URL where it lives.

For California, that means CCLD facility-search pages, LIC 9099 reports, and the state’s OSI exports. For other states, the equivalent licensing portal record is cited the same way.

We do not paraphrase a citation’s severity or alter inspector language. Where a state has redacted a record, the dossier marks the redaction and the date it was retrieved.

CCLD facility search

TURNAROUND

How fast can we get a dossier on a specific facility?

Standard turnaround is 48 hours from request to delivered PDF. Rush turnaround for active discovery or imminent placement decisions is same-day for in-state facilities, next-day for out-of-state.

Subscription firms with portfolio-level access pull dossiers on demand from the dashboard.

COVERAGE

Which states are covered today, and which are coming?

California is fully covered for licensed child care and adult residential care. Florida, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania are in calibration and available for case-by-case workups while we extend coverage.

If your case requires a state not yet listed, we will tell you what is and is not retrievable from that state’s licensing portal before you commit. We do not pretend coverage we do not have.

See coverage state-by-state

PRICING

How is a dossier priced?

We are calibrating pricing with our first cohort of attorney customers. Book a 15-minute call to discuss your case and we will quote against the scope.

Single-dossier firms typically buy per workup and bill through to the client as case-prep cost. Firms running multi-state placement practices license a subscription with portfolio rates.

FOR OPERATORS

For multi-unit operators.

How portfolio reports are built, what they cover, and how the data joins to your internal systems.

PORTFOLIO REPORT

What is a Portfolio Intelligence Report?

A Portfolio Intelligence Report is a dashboard, plus a delivered PDF on cadence, that shows every facility you operate, severity-ranked by recent regulatory activity, with the cited reasons each one is in the rank it is.

It also shows nearby competitor facilities along the same severity scale, so risk drift in your portfolio is readable against the local baseline rather than in isolation.

Operators use it to build an internal pre-closure warning signal that surfaces six to twelve months before a facility is in active risk.

COVERAGE

How many facilities and which types are covered?

Coverage today: licensed child care, RCFE, ARF, and adult day-care across California. Other state coverage is expanding; ask for your portfolio’s state mix and we will confirm what we can and cannot show.

There is no per-facility minimum. Operators with five facilities and operators with two hundred facilities both license the same product.

FEED ACCESS

Can we get a feed for our internal dashboards?

Yes. Subscription operators receive a normalized JSON or CSV feed on weekly cadence. The feed schema is documented and stable.

The feed joins on facility license number, so it merges cleanly with whatever internal system already keys on that field.

API and feed access

METHODOLOGY

How is the trajectory signal calculated?

Trajectory is the slope of severity-weighted citations over the last twelve months, normalized by facility type and state. It is not a single rolled-up number. Each facility carries the calculation’s component pieces so an operations team can audit why a facility moved up or down the rank.

We do not project closure probability. Trajectory is a directional signal, not a forecast.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Does the data identify our facilities to other operators?

No. Other operators see your facilities only the way a parent or a regulator sees them: as records on the public licensing portal. Your subscription does not expose any private information about your portfolio.

The data we license is the public record, normalized. It would already be findable by anyone who knew the license numbers.

FOR INSURERS

For insurance carriers and reinsurance.

What is in the structured penalty feed, how severity is normalized across states, and how it joins to NAIC and claim data.

PENALTY FEED

What does the structured penalty feed contain?

The feed contains every public regulatory action against every licensed facility in the covered states, with normalized fields: visit ID, visit date, citation Title and section, severity tier, monetary penalty, plan-of-correction status, and the joinable license number.

Severity is normalized across state vocabularies so a Type A citation in California sits on the same scale as the equivalent state’s most-serious tier.

CADENCE

Cadence and refresh frequency?

Weekly normalized refresh, with daily incremental for new visits in covered states. Twelve-month rolling history at weekly cadence is the gating coverage tier; longer historical depth is in calibration.

NORMALIZATION

How is severity normalized across states and verticals?

Each state regulator publishes citations on its own tier system (Type A and B in California, Class I through IV elsewhere, severity scores in others). We map every state vocabulary onto a common five-tier scale, with the original state code preserved alongside so an actuary can audit the mapping.

Verticals are kept separate. A child care Type A and an adult-care Type A are different events even after normalization; the feed marks vertical at the row level.

JOIN KEYS

Is the data joinable to NAIC and claim data on common keys?

License number joins cleanly to NAIC’s licensee tables and to most carrier-side claim systems that key on facility license. Where a carrier keys on parent operator instead, the feed includes the parent-of-record and chain-membership fields so a join is possible at the operator level.

HISTORICAL DEPTH

What is the historical depth of the trajectory data?

Twelve months of weekly cadence is in production. Three to five years of historical inspection records are loaded for the covered states and available as a one-time pull for reserving and back-testing.

Pre-2020 records vary by state in completeness. We disclose the gaps before you license against them.

FOR PARENTS

For parents and family decision-makers.

What ReadyRule shows about a facility, where the data comes from, and what it costs to use.

FACILITY PAGE

What is on a facility page, and where does the data come from?

A facility page shows the licensed name, capacity, license type, every state visit on file, every citation by Title section, plan-of-correction status, ownership and director-of-record changes, and a list of nearby comparable facilities.

All of it comes from the state regulator’s public records. For California facilities, that is CCLD. We do not gate any of it; the data is free for parents because it is public.

CCLD Public Records (CA)

FINDING A FACILITY

How do I find my daycare or my elder-care facility?

Type the facility name, the address, or the license number into the search on the homepage. If you do not know the license number, the address usually narrows it to one or two results.

Every California-licensed facility is on the site. If you cannot find one, it is most likely closed or unlicensed.

CITATION MEANING

What does a citation mean? What does it not mean?

A citation is a state inspector’s finding that, on the day of the visit, the facility was out of compliance with a specific Title 22 section. It is a regulatory record, not a court ruling.

A citation does not mean a child was harmed. Many citations are paperwork (an expired posting, a missing record). A small fraction are serious (supervision lapses, injuries, abuse). The citation’s Title section tells you which.

What it tells you is what the state inspector saw on a specific date and how the facility responded.

RECORD INTEGRITY

Can a facility hide their record from ReadyRule?

No. Inspection records are public under California law. A facility can claim its page on ReadyRule and add a written response to a citation, but it cannot remove or alter the underlying citation, the visit history, or the regulator’s text.

If a facility tells you their record is not on ReadyRule, ask them to send you the link to their state licensing portal page. The same record is there.

COST

Is ReadyRule free for parents?

Yes. Every facility page, every citation, every search, and every comparable-facility view is free for parents and stays free.

ReadyRule is paid for by the people who make decisions about facilities professionally: elder-law attorneys, multi-unit operators, and insurance carriers. The parent surface is loss-leader on purpose.

FOR PROVIDERS

For licensees and facility directors.

How to claim your facility page, respond to a citation, and what stays under your control.

CLAIMING

Can I claim my facility page?

Yes. If you are the licensee of record, you can claim your facility page in about two minutes. Verification is automatic against the state licensing portal: the email or phone on file with the regulator.

After claiming, you can add a written response next to any citation on your record, update the facility’s About description and hours, and keep the page accurate.

Claiming is free, no card required

RESPONSE

Can I respond to a citation publicly?

Yes. ReadyRule is the only place a licensee can publish a response next to an inspection record. The state’s portal does not let you do this; only the inspector’s narrative shows.

Your response appears next to the citation under the heading "From the Provider," with the date you wrote it. You write the response; we do not edit it.

COST

Does claiming cost money?

No. Claiming a facility page is free, and the first response you write to a citation on your record is free. Additional responses, neighborhood-monitoring alerts, and the compliance dashboard are part of the paid provider plan.

REPLACEMENT

Will my response replace what CCLD wrote?

No. The inspector’s narrative stays on the page exactly as the state published it. Your response sits next to it, clearly labeled as your account. Both are visible to anyone who reads the page.

This is the point. Parents and partners want to know what happened and what you did about it. The state record alone does not tell them the second half.

MODERATION

Who reviews provider responses for abuse?

A response that targets an inspector by name, makes an allegation against a child or a family, or contains material that is libelous or threatening is removed and the licensee is notified. Responses that disagree with the inspector’s finding are fine; that is the point of the surface.

In the rare case of a dispute over a removal, the original response is preserved and a moderator decision is documented in the audit log.

FOR JOURNALISTS & PRACTITIONERS

For journalists, researchers, and academic users.

For journalists, researchers, and academic users licensing the underlying data.

CITATION POLICY

Where can I cite ReadyRule data in a story?

Anywhere. The underlying records are public; our normalization and presentation are free to cite with a link back to the facility page or the relevant section. Email support@readyrule.com if you want a media-fact-check pass before publication.

BULK ACCESS

Can I get bulk access for research?

Yes. Academic and newsroom data partnerships get a structured export of the covered states’ inspection records under a research-use license. Reach out at support@readyrule.com with the scope of the project and we will respond within one business day.

LICENSING

What is the licensing structure for academic use?

Academic projects at non-profit institutions get a no-fee research license with attribution. Commercial research, including consultancies and policy shops billing clients, licenses the same data on commercial terms.

ABOUT READYRULE

About ReadyRule.

How ReadyRule was built, how the data graph works, and how to report a data issue.

FOUNDERS

Who built ReadyRule and why?

ReadyRule was built by Jason Noah Choi, who started it after watching a family member try to vet a residential care placement using the state licensing portal. The portal returned forty-seven HTML pages that took two evenings to read.

The state publishes this data and hopes you can read it. We made it readable, sourced, and fast. The same data, the same regulator, the same records, presented as a document instead of a portal.

DATA GRAPH

What is the data graph?

The data graph is the set of relationships between facilities, licensees, parent operators, citations, visit records, and historical lineage that the state regulator publishes as separate flat tables.

We compute the joins (license-number to operator, prior-license to current-license, sibling facilities under one chain) and keep them current so a partner can query the graph instead of stitching it together by hand.

UPDATE FREQUENCY

How often is the data updated?

New inspection visits in California land on facility pages on a weekly cycle; same-week for high-priority records. Other states are weekly where the regulator’s portal supports it. The exact refresh time per record is shown on each facility page.

ACCURACY

Is the data accurate? What is the error-correction process?

The data on the page matches the regulator’s public record at the time it was retrieved. If the regulator amends a record, our copy follows on the next refresh.

If you spot something that is wrong, the page has a "Report a data issue" link in the footer of every facility page. Reports are reviewed within one business day; if the regulator’s record is the source of the error, we say so and link to it.

REPORT AN ISSUE

How do I report a data issue?

Use the "Report a data issue" link in the footer of any facility page, or email support@readyrule.com with the facility license number and the specific record. Reviewed within one business day.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS

Still have questions?

Email us at support@readyrule.com and we will answer within one business day. Or book a 15-minute call.