How to Read a Nursing Home Inspection Report (Form CMS-2567)
Every Medicare-certified nursing home is inspected at least every 15 months. The report is public, and it tells you more than a star rating does — if you know where to look.
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State survey agencies inspect every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home on behalf of CMS, on average every 12 months and never more than 15 months apart, plus complaint investigations in between. The findings are written up on Form CMS-2567, the "Statement of Deficiencies". Facilities must keep the latest one available for anyone to read, and CMS publishes them on Care Compare.
The scope-and-severity grid
Each deficiency is coded with a letter from A to L. The letter combines two things: how many residents were affected (isolated, pattern, or widespread) and how serious the harm was (no actual harm, potential for more than minimal harm, actual harm, or immediate jeopardy).
- A–C: no actual harm, potential for minimal harm.
- D–F: no actual harm but potential for more than minimal harm — the most common codes.
- G–I: actual harm to a resident.
- J–L: immediate jeopardy — a resident's health or safety was in serious danger. These trigger fines and, if not corrected, termination from Medicare.
Our inspection metric uses CMS's own weighted health-inspection score, which gives G–L findings far more weight than D–F, and counts complaint surveys and repeat visits.
What to look for
- Any G or higher code in the last three cycles.
- The same tag (for example F-684 Quality of Care, F-689 Accidents, F-880 Infection Control) appearing in more than one survey — a pattern the facility has not fixed.
- Revisits: a facility that needed two or more revisits to correct findings has weak follow-through.
- Fines and payment denials in the last three years, listed on the facility's Care Compare page.
How to get the report
Ask the administrator for the most recent CMS-2567 and the plan of correction — they are required to show it. Or open the facility's page on Medicare Care Compare, then "Health inspections". Our facility pages link straight to the CMS record.