How to Read a Form 2567

Every time a state surveyor walks into a certified nursing facility — for a routine inspection, a complaint investigation, or a focused review — whatever they find gets documented on a Form 2567. Its official name is the Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction. It is one of the most information-dense, least-read documents in American healthcare.

A 2567 is not a verdict. It is a record — written by a surveyor, responded to by the facility, and made public through the CMS Care Compare database. Knowing how to read it does not require a medical background or a law degree. It requires knowing what you are looking at.

This guide breaks it down piece by piece.

What is in the document

A 2567 is organized by citation — each deficiency the surveyor found gets its own entry. A short survey might cite two or three. A troubled facility can generate a document dozens of pages long. Each citation follows the same structure.

F-Tag

A federal regulatory tag — a number that identifies which specific rule was violated. F600 is the abuse prohibition. F684 is quality of care. F812 is food sanitation. The tag number tells you the category before you read a single word of the narrative.

In some states — California and Illinois are common examples — you may also see state-specific citation codes with different letter prefixes. These follow state regulatory frameworks rather than federal F-tags and may carry their own severity designations.

Regulation text

The actual federal regulation the surveyor applied. Usually dense and written in the language of the Code of Federal Regulations. Read it once so you understand the standard being applied, then move to the narrative.

Surveyor findings

This is the most important section. It is the surveyor's account of what they observed, reviewed, and were told — including staff interviews, resident interviews, medical record reviews, and direct observation. It is written in the third person and reads like investigative notes.

Resident names are replaced with codes (Resident #1, Resident #2) to protect privacy.

Severity & scope

A single letter (A through L) that encodes two things at once: how serious the harm was, and how many residents were affected. This is the grid most people skip. It is worth understanding.

Plan of correction

The facility's written response — what they did or will do to fix each cited deficiency. Filed by the facility, not the surveyor. Not an admission of the deficiency, but required to maintain certification.

Some citations carry no Plan of Correction at all. See the note below on what that means — it is not what most people assume.

The severity and scope matrix

Every deficiency is assigned a letter from A to L. That letter sits at the intersection of two axes: how severe the harm was, and how widespread it was across residents. Most families never learn this grid. It is, in practice, the most useful shorthand in the entire document.

A "D" citation means a surveyor found a problem with potential for harm — but no one was actually hurt, and it was limited to one or a few residents. A "K" citation means there was an immediate threat to resident health or safety affecting more than an isolated number of people. Those are fundamentally different situations. The letter tells you which is which before you read a word.

Note that A, B, and C citations — the lowest severity level — are documented but do not typically affect a facility's star rating. They exist in the record and are worth knowing about, but they do not carry the same weight as citations in the D-through-L range.

F-tags: what the number means

F-tags run from the F500s into the F900s, organized by regulatory category. You do not need to memorize them. You need to know which categories warrant the most attention when you see them cited. Note that in some states you may also encounter state-specific citation codes alongside federal F-tags — these are governed by state rather than federal regulations and may use different letter prefixes depending on where you are.

Read the narrative — not just the tag

The F-tag tells you the category. The severity letter tells you the weight. The narrative tells you what actually happened.

Surveyor narratives are written in the careful, restrained language of regulatory documentation — but they are describing real events involving real people. A narrative under F600 might describe a resident who reported being struck by a staff member, the facility's response, and what the surveyor concluded from their investigation. A narrative under F684 might describe a resident whose pressure ulcer progressed through four stages over six weeks with no documented wound care.

The narrative is where a deficiency becomes a story. Read it. It will tell you more about a facility's actual culture than any star rating can.

A few things to look for in the narrative: Does the facility's own documentation contradict what staff told the surveyor? Are there multiple residents cited under the same tag — suggesting a systemic failure, not an isolated incident? Does the timeline of events suggest a delayed response? These are not things a number can convey.

The Plan of Correction: what it means and what it doesn't

For every deficiency cited, the facility is required to file a Plan of Correction — a written commitment describing how they addressed the problem, who was affected, what system changes were made, and how they will monitor going forward.

A complete Plan of Correction should address four things:

Three important things to understand about the POC: First, submitting it is not an admission that the deficiency occurred — facilities often dispute findings while still filing corrections. Second, the POC is submitted by the facility and not independently verified until a revisit. Third, a well-written, specific POC is meaningfully different from a vague one. Language like "staff will be re-educated on policy" without naming who, how, and when suggests a facility that is checking a box rather than solving a problem.

One survey versus a pattern

A single 2567 is a snapshot. A facility's inspection history over three or four survey cycles is a portrait. The distinction matters enormously.

Repeat citations in the same F-tag category are among the most meaningful signals available. A facility cited for inadequate pressure ulcer care in three consecutive surveys has a wound care problem, not a paperwork problem. That is what the longitudinal record shows — and it is something a single star rating cannot convey.

Where to find it — and what to do when it isn't there yet

Every 2567 for every Medicare and Medicaid certified facility in the country is publicly available through CMS Care Compare at medicare.gov/care-compare. Search by facility name or location, navigate to the inspection tab, and download the full document. The most recent standard survey is listed first; prior surveys are accessible in the history.

You do not have to wait. Federal law requires every certified facility to maintain a copy of its most recent 2567 in a binder available for public viewing in the lobby. You can walk in and ask to see it. The facility is legally required to provide access. This is a right most families do not know they have — and it can matter significantly when you are making a time-sensitive decision.

NursingHomeIQ surfaces and contextualizes this data in facility profiles — flagging repeat deficiencies, immediate jeopardy events, and citation patterns across survey cycles so you can see the signal without parsing every page of a regulatory document on your own.

But we encourage you to read the narrative for any facility you are seriously considering. The data tells you where to look. The document tells you what is there.