Keeping your facility compliant isn’t just about passing surveys—it’s about protecting residents when emergencies strike. In 2025, CMS surveyors are paying even closer attention to emergency preparedness, documentation, compliance & staff training. With the revised F-tag list released in April 2025, deficiencies are now tracked and reported differently, and inspection results are posted much faster than before. That means less time to react—and more risk if you’re not prepared.
According to CMS Quality, Certification and Oversight Reports (QCOR), the same problem areas continue to surface year after year. Infection control, accident hazards, and food safety violations remain the most common citations nationwide. Let's look at the top five compliance hotspots - and how to stay off the list.
📌 Pro Tip: Reinforce the basics—hand hygiene audits, PPE training refreshers, and environmental cleaning logs are among the first things surveyors check
CMS defines F689 as keeping residents “free from accident hazards.” In practice, surveyors most often cite:
📌 Pro Tip: Conduct weekly “environmental rounds” to spot hazards. A clean, uncluttered space is your best defense against this tag.
Food safety citations consistently rank in the top three nationwide. Most are tied to kitchen practices—like improper sanitization, poor temperature control, or expired items—but this tag also applies to emergency food and water reserves.
While CMS doesn’t mandate a uniform standard for supply levels, facilities are expected to follow emergency preparedness guidelines, which commonly recommend at least three days of food and water per resident. Surveyors will check that reserves are:
📌 Pro Tip: Build emergency food and water checks into your dietary manager’s routine. Rotate stock as needed and document the process—10 year food and water options eliminate most expiration headaches.
Emergency preparedness isn’t a binder on the shelf—it must be woven into care delivery. Facilities are cited when plans are generic, outdated, or not adjusted for census and resident needs. The most common gaps include:
📌 Pro Tip: Treat emergency preparedness like an ongoing QAPI project. Document every drill, update, and plan review. If it’s not on paper, surveyors will assume it didn’t happen.
The CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule requires facilities to:
The single biggest citation in this category? Failure to document participation and follow-up. Facilities may run the drill but skip the paperwork, leaving them exposed during surveys.
📌 Pro Tip: Assign one person per drill as “scribe.” Collect attendance sheets, photos, and after-action notes. These simple artifacts often mean the difference between compliance and a deficiency.
In April 2025, CMS released a revised F-tag list. While the underlying rules haven’t changed, the way surveyors categorize and post deficiencies has. Inspections are now published to the public almost immediately—leaving little room to “fix quietly” before families or referral partners see them. For administrators, this accelerates the reputational risk of even minor citations.