Nursing Home Compliance Data & Deficiency Trends
National nursing home compliance data and deficiency trends drawn from official CMS Health Deficiency records across more than 14,000 skilled nursing facilities. Explore the most common citations, severity distributions, state-by-state comparisons, and year-over-year trends.
What the National Data Shows
Across the full CMS Health Deficiency dataset — more than 400,000 citations spanning over 14,000 certified facilities — a consistent picture emerges. A small group of F-Tags accounts for a disproportionate share of all citations: infection prevention and control (F880), accident hazards and supervision (F689), quality of care (F684), and food safety (F812) appear on surveys year after year, in every state. Most citations are rated at the no-actual-harm level (scope-severity D through F), but roughly ten thousand carry Immediate Jeopardy severity (J, K, or L) — findings where residents faced serious injury or death. Severity patterns also differ sharply by state, reflecting real differences in both facility performance and survey enforcement culture.
How to Use These Insights
- Facility teams — see which tags dominate nationally and in your state, and audit those care areas before your next survey window opens.
- Regional teams — compare your buildings' citation mix against national severity distributions to spot outliers early.
- Families and researchers — understand what "normal" looks like so a facility's individual record can be read in context rather than in isolation.
Every figure on this page links back to the underlying facility-level records, so you can move from a national trend to a specific building's survey history in two clicks.
Explore the Data
- Most-cited F-Tags nationwide
- Search facility inspection results
- State compliance benchmarks
- Best nursing homes by state
Explore POCDesk — Free Nursing Home Compliance Tools
- SNF Scorecard — look up any facility's inspection record
- Nursing Home Compare Tool — side-by-side comparisons
- Skilled Nursing Near Me — find facilities by city & state
- Best Nursing Homes by State — ranked by inspection results
- Survey Tracker — recent CMS survey activity
- F-Tag Reference Guide — every CMS deficiency tag
- Plan of Correction (POC) Complete Guide
- Free AI POC Generator
- Plan of Correction Examples
- CMS Survey Preparation Guide
- SNF Compliance Guides
- What Is Skilled Nursing Care?
Official Sources
POCDesk analyzes official government data. Verify any facility's record or read the underlying regulations at these primary sources:
- Medicare.gov Care Compare — CMS's official nursing home comparison tool
- CMS Provider Data Catalog — the raw nursing home inspection & deficiency datasets
- CMS Nursing Home Certification & Compliance — enforcement policy and the Special Focus Facility program
- 42 CFR Part 483 (eCFR) — the federal requirements of participation behind every F-Tag
- National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center — free advocacy help for residents and families