Nursing Home Violations: Look Up Any Home's Inspection Record

The compare tool sets two or three homes side by side. Their citations, fines, and star ratings appear together. That can help when picking a home or weighing whether to move a parent out.

Look at staffing in that view. Across the country, homes average 3.86 nursing hours per resident per day, with 0.69 of those hours from a registered nurse. Average nursing staff turnover is 45.8 percent.

Visits are done by state survey agencies. These offices, often inside a state health department, check that homes follow health and safety rules. Surveyors review the care people get and the way the home provides it. They read clinical charts and speak with residents, relatives, caregivers, and office staff.

Inspectors may visit more than once a year if a home performs poorly, receives complaints, or reports an incident. Some visits are brief and focus only on infection prevention and control.

Two updates change how a report reads. Since July 2026, cited problems are ordered with the worst harm first. From September 2026, a home with few citations and stronger staffing may get a shorter visit from a smaller team, and the record says when that happened.

A citation is a written finding that one federal rule was not met. Each is graded by its severity and the number of residents affected. CMS files now list 418,947 health citations; 22,564 involved harm or immediate danger. Of those, 9,248 citations reached the immediate danger level.

The typical national figure is 9.2 health citations for each standard inspection. Use it as a benchmark when a single report seems long.

A home may dispute a citation informally. During that process, the citation stays out of the star rating until the case is resolved. So a recent serious finding can make the stars look kinder than the full record.

The federal government can penalize a home for serious citations, or for problems it leaves unfixed for a long time. Over the past three years, 6,510 homes have received at least one fine, with penalties totaling $454,984,026.

CMS places an abuse icon on 1,429 homes. Another 87 are Special Focus Facilities, and 440 more are candidates.

Failure to protect residents from abuse appears 8,701 times across 5,088 homes. Inspectors also cited homes 8,832 times for late reporting of suspected abuse, neglect, or theft. If your mother or father was hurt and the home's record shows the same kind of problem, call today and go over it with a law firm that advertises on this site.

A concern about care or conditions is sent to the State Survey Agency. That office surveys facilities and looks into complaints, and it may send inspectors after one is logged. A complaint is also called a grievance.

Common complaints include:

• mistreatment or abuse of a resident
• too few staff
• unsafe or unclean conditions

A complaint may be filed without giving a name. A relative or friend who helps may be listed as the resident's representative. Findings from complaints in the last three years feed into a home's health inspection score.

Filing a complaint asks the state to investigate. If someone has been hurt, call now to talk about what happened with a law firm that advertises on Nursing Home Violations.