Nursing Home Deficiencies: Every F-Tag Inspectors Cite

Citation and deficiency are two words for one thing. As Medicare explains, inspectors issue one when they see that a home is falling short of a national requirement.

The CMS public citation list covers each home's last three inspection cycles plus its complaint visits and lists each citation on its own line. Every record shows:

• which home was inspected and when the visit happened
• the tag number, along with a plain description of the rule
• how broad and how serious the problem was
• where things stand now and when it was corrected

Nationally, the average standard inspection in the latest cycle turned up 9.2 health citations, based on the CMS provider file.

Each citation carries a scope and severity rating, assigned by the state inspection agency that visited the home. Scope tells you how many residents were affected, using three levels: isolated, pattern, or widespread. Severity reflects the impact, measured across four levels of harm.

Immediate jeopardy is the top severity level. It means the home's failure brought about, or could easily have brought about, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death for a resident. The ratings are shown as letters, and G through L mean a resident was hurt or at immediate risk.

In the latest records, 22,564 citations involved residents being hurt or placed in immediate danger, while 9,248 reached immediate jeopardy with a rating of J, K, or L. The star rating for health inspections awards more points for citations that are more serious and more widespread. It also adds points when an issue from a previous inspection still has not been fixed.

Homes can face penalties from both the federal government and the states, usually for serious citations or problems left uncorrected for a long stretch. CMS refers to these actions as remedies, and it can apply one or more of them, picking based on scope and severity.

There are hard deadlines. If a home hasn't fixed its problems within three months, Medicare and Medicaid must stop paying for any new residents it admits. If it still hasn't fixed them by six months, it must be dropped from Medicare, Medicaid or both.

According to the CMS penalty records, 6,510 homes have received at least one fine, with 12,989 fines totaling $454,984,026. Medicare also marks homes with a history of serious problems. 87 are on its closest-watch list, called Special Focus Facilities, and 440 more are being considered for it. 1,429 homes carry a warning symbol for abuse on their Medicare profile.

Yes. Through Informal Dispute Resolution, homes are able to challenge citations. If CMS imposes a fine, the home may also request an independent version of that review. A citation under dispute remains visible to the public, but it stays out of the star rating until the dispute is resolved.

Each home is inspected by state agencies roughly once a year. Homes with poor performance, complaints, or self-reported incidents may be inspected more often. The health inspection score looks back over three years of complaints, incidents, and infection-control findings.

The latest CMS data came out on October 8, 2026, with the next release expected on October 28, 2026. Each home's record here is built from these Care Compare files, which are refreshed monthly, and you can compare two or three homes side by side.