CMS Form 2567 Survey Reports in Nursing Home Cases

A CMS Form 2567 is the Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction a state survey agency issues after it inspects a nursing home certified for Medicare or Medicaid. It lists each federal requirement the surveyors found the facility did not meet, the evidence behind each finding, and the facility's written plan to fix it. In a nursing home neglect case it can show the facility was on notice of the same problem that hurt your client. It does not prove negligence on its own, and it is only as useful as your ability to tie it to the resident's chart.

What is on the form

Every deficiency follows the same structure:

• The F-tag. A tag number identifies the federal requirement. F686 covers treatment and services to prevent and heal pressure ulcers; F689 covers accident hazards, supervision and devices. Those two appear often in pressure injury and fall cases, but abuse, nutrition, medications, infection control and care planning each have their own tags.
• Scope and severity. A single letter from A to L. Severity climbs from no actual harm (A to F), to actual harm that is not immediate jeopardy (G to I), to immediate jeopardy (J to L). Within each level, the letter shows whether the problem was isolated, a pattern or widespread.
• The findings. The surveyor's narrative: what they observed on the unit, what the records showed, what staff and residents said, and which facility policy they compared practice against. Residents appear by number (Resident #4, R12), not by name.
• The plan of correction. The facility's response: what it did for the residents named, how it identified others at risk, what it changed, how it will monitor, and a completion date. Many plans state that preparing the plan is not an admission that the deficiency occurred.

Surveys come in several kinds. Standard surveys recur on a cycle. Complaint surveys follow a complaint or a facility-reported incident and are usually narrower. Revisits check whether the correction took hold. Because facilities must report certain incidents themselves, a complaint investigation connected to your client's injury may exist even if the family never filed a complaint.

Where to get them

• Care Compare on Medicare.gov shows recent health inspection results and the deficiencies cited for each certified facility.
• The state survey agency can supply older surveys, complaint investigation reports and, depending on state law, related survey records, usually through a public records request.
• The facility must make the results of its most recent survey available for residents and families to examine.
• Discovery reaches the 2567s for the relevant period and what the facility did internally after each one.

Pull the surveys that cover the resident's stay and the cycles on either side. One citation is an event. The same tag on survey after survey is a pattern.

How a long-term-care nurse reads a 2567

Surveyors write in a compressed style that assumes clinical knowledge. A nurse reviewer reads the narrative the way the surveyor built it, then checks it against the chart.

1. Is your client in it? Residents are de-identified, but the details often give them away: admission date, diagnoses, the stage and location of a wound, the date of a fall, the unit. If they match, the surveyor may have reviewed your client's record. Confirm it in discovery rather than assume it.
2. When was the survey? A citation before the injury suggests notice. One during the stay describes conditions at the time. One after can show the problem continued. How each can be used is a question for counsel.
3. Which policy was cited? Surveyors often quote the facility's own policy, then describe practice that fell short of it. Request that policy in the version in effect during the stay, not the current one.
4. What did the plan promise? Typical promises: re-education for nursing staff, an audit of every resident at risk, recurring skin check audits, reports to the quality committee. Ask for evidence those things happened: in-service sign-in sheets, the audit tools, the completed audits. A plan dated before your client's injury that was never carried out is a strong fact.
5. What did staff say? Interview statements ("CNA C stated there were not always enough staff to reposition residents on nights") point to witnesses by role and to the staffing records that confirm or contradict them.

What a 2567 cannot do for you

• It applies a regulatory standard, not a civil one. A deficiency means a federal participation requirement was not met. Negligence still needs duty, breach, causation and damages, and usually expert testimony on the nursing standard of care.
• No citation does not mean good care. Surveyors review a sample of residents. Your client may not have been in it.
• Admissibility varies. Some states limit how survey findings can be used at trial, and courts differ on plans of correction. Check the statutes, rules and case law that govern your case before you build around a 2567.
• The narrative is secondhand. Verify every fact the surveyor reports against the primary record.
• Quality committee records are often protected. The facility's quality assessment and assurance materials may be shielded from discovery. Ask counsel how far that protection reaches in your jurisdiction; it is a separate question from the medical record.

Records to request with the 2567

The MDS deserves its own review; see MDS assessments in nursing home litigation. For the core chart, our list of nursing home neglect records to request covers what most first requests miss, and nurse staffing records in malpractice discovery covers the staffing side.

Where it fits in the review

A 2567 gives the nurse reviewer a hypothesis and a records list. A merit screen tests that hypothesis against the resident's own timeline: what the facility knew about this resident's risk, what the care plan promised, and what the nursing and CNA records show was done. A reviewer with long-term-care experience will also know which surveyor observations matter clinically and which are paperwork findings unlikely to explain the injury.

Next step

Post a nursing home case with the survey reports you have, described without names, and long-term-care nurses send proposals. Records stay private until you hire.

General information for legal professionals, not legal advice. Rules and deadlines vary by state; check the statute and local rules that govern your case.