How to Check a Nursing Home's Inspections in Berks County
Three official sites hold a Berks nursing home's or personal care home's record: the state's inspection surveys, Medicare's star ratings and the Department of Human Services' license lookup. How to search each, what the reports and letters mean, and what a visit still adds.
If you're choosing between two or three homes for a parent in Berks, the state posts its inspection reports for licensed homes online, free, and you can read them tonight. Nursing homes are inspected by the state Department of Health and rated by Medicare; personal care homes and assisted living residences are inspected by the state Department of Human Services, and each office posts its reports on its own site.
This is general information about where the records are and what the words mean; it doesn't say which home is right for your parent, and it names no home's findings. A question about one home's care goes to the county's long-term care ombudsman, a free advocate for people living in care homes, at 610-478-6500. The county's communities are on our county senior living page; this post is about reading the official record of any home on it.
Which state office inspects the home on your list?
A nursing home is a licensed medical facility, inspected and licensed by the Department of Health, and it has to meet both state and federal rules. A personal care home is Pennsylvania's license for nearly all of Berks County's communities that people call assisted living, and an assisted living residence is a separate license. Both kinds of home are inspected and licensed by the Department of Human Services. No federal rules apply to them.
The table shows where each kind of home's record sits and what you'll find there.
| What you're checking | Where the official record is | What you'll find |
|---|---|---|
| A nursing home's state inspections | The Department of Health's Nursing Care Facility Locator (sais.health.pa.gov) | Each inspection by date, the Statement of Deficiencies and the home's Plan of Correction |
| A nursing home's federal ratings | Medicare's Care Compare (medicare.gov/care-compare) | Star ratings for health inspections, staffing and quality, the overall star, and the abuse, special-focus and top-performer icons |
| A personal care home's or assisted living residence's license and inspections | The Department of Human Services' Human Services Provider Directory (humanservices.dhs.pa.gov) | License status and type with its dates, capacity, any secure dementia unit, and the Inspection Summary with each report as a PDF |
The three official lookups for a Berks facility, and what each one holds for the home on your list.
The Department of Health locator and Medicare's stars cover nursing homes only. A personal care home or an assisted living residence has no star rating, and its license and inspection record are on the Department of Human Services directory.
How do you find a nursing home's state inspection reports?
Open the Department of Health's Nursing Care Facility Locator at sais.health.pa.gov, pick the County search, choose Berks and press Find. The results page lists the county's nursing homes, each with its license status and last inspection date. The locator marks a nursing home's license Regular when the home holds a full license, and Provisional, with a number after it, when the state has licensed the home for a set period while it corrects deficiencies. Under each name, View Patient Care Surveys holds the inspection reports; a survey is the state's word for an inspection.
A survey page lists each inspection by its dates, and each report is a Statement of Deficiencies. A deficiency is a rule the inspectors found the home not meeting, written up with the home's plan to correct it.
The state's locator posts a survey only after at least 41 days have passed since the inspection ended, about six weeks. The Department of Health inspects nursing homes every twelve to fifteen months, and a home with a history of serious problems may be inspected more frequently.
The county runs one nursing home of its own, and our guide to Berks Heim explains how it's run and who it serves.
What do Medicare's star ratings measure?
The second lookup is Care Compare at medicare.gov/care-compare. Search nursing homes by city or zip code, and each home carries one overall five-star rating plus separate ratings for health inspections, staffing and quality measures.
The health inspection stars rest on the last two annual inspections: how many problems they found, how serious each one was, and how many residents it touched. They also count three years of complaint inspections and of the inspections done only for infection control. The record calls how serious a problem was its severity and how widespread it was its scope. The staffing stars rest on nurse hours per resident per day and on staff turnover. The quality stars rest on how residents fare on measures such as falls and pressure sores. The overall star is the health inspection star, moved up one for a five-star staffing rating or down one for a one-star staffing rating, and moved up one for a five-star quality rating or down one for a one-star quality rating, with one exception: a one-star health inspection rating can be raised by only one star in all.
Three icons can sit beside the stars. An abuse icon marks a home with a recent abuse citation that caused harm, or repeat abuse citations where residents could have been harmed, and its health inspection rating is capped at two stars. A yellow warning sign replaces the ratings for a home in the Special Focus Facility program, a federal program that puts nursing homes with a history of serious problems under closer inspection, at least every six months. Since September 2026, a trophy marks top performers.
How do you read scope and severity on a deficiency?
Every federal deficiency carries one letter, A to L, in the inspection record behind the stars, and that letter is its scope and severity: how bad the problem was and how widespread. Care Compare shows it as a level of harm and residents affected as few, some or many, and the state's own report doesn't print the letter either; it marks the same scale in words, from Minimal Citation with No Harm up to Serious Harm.
Severity runs four levels, from the lowest, a problem that could have caused minimal harm and didn't, up to immediate jeopardy, a problem that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death to a resident. Scope runs three, from isolated, when the problem touched one or a very limited number of residents or staff, to widespread, when the problem reached, or could have reached, a large part or all of the home.
The grid shows the four levels, the three scopes and the letter each pair gets.
| How bad it was | One or a few residents | A pattern | Widespread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Could have caused minimal harm | A | B | C |
| Could have caused more than minimal harm | D | E | F |
| Caused actual harm | G | H | I |
| Immediate jeopardy | J | K | L |
The federal scope-and-severity grid behind the letters, severity down the rows and scope across the columns.
Reading down the grid, each row is a worse level of harm; reading across, each column reached more of the home. So a G is worse harm than an F, even though F is a wider problem.
How do you check a personal care home's license and inspections?
For a personal care home or an assisted living residence, go to the Human Services Provider Directory at humanservices.dhs.pa.gov, choose the service, Personal Care Homes or Assisted Living, and choose the county. Each home's row shows its licensed capacity, whether it has a secure dementia care unit, its license status, type and dates, and links to its Inspection Summary, its license certificate and any waiver.
The Inspection Summary lists the state's inspection and violation reports by date. Each report opens as a PDF. The Department of Human Services inspects each home annually, and that inspection is announced; unannounced and complaint inspections happen as well.
A license is FULL when the home meets the rules, and provisional when the state found it in substantial but not complete compliance and fixing the rest, or when the home has not yet begun to operate.
What can't the reports tell you, and who do you call?
A report tells you what inspectors saw on the days of the inspection, and since those days, conditions in the home could have changed. The stars won't tell you whether a home is good at rehab or dementia care, or how easy it will be for the family to visit. Visit several times at different times of day and night. Read the admission contract before anyone signs it, including its fees. Once you've read each record, pick your visits from the county senior living page.
What each kind of home costs and who pays is a post of its own; until then, our senior services guide lists the offices that answer it.
If what you read raises a question about a particular home's care, the long-term care ombudsman at the county aging office (610-478-6500) is the person to call: a trained advocate who investigates complaints about the quality of care or treatment, confidentially and free. The same office handles much more than complaints, and our guide to the Area Agency on Aging covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions.
Why doesn't the newest inspection show up on the state site yet?
The state locator posts a survey only after at least 41 days have elapsed since the date the inspection ended, about six weeks. If inspectors were there in the last six weeks, the report may still be inside that window; ask the home when the visit was.
What does a provisional license mean?
A nursing home shows Provisional on the Department of Health locator when the state has licensed it for a set period while it corrects deficiencies. A personal care home or assisted living residence gets a provisional license from the Department of Human Services when it is in substantial but not complete compliance, or when it has not yet begun to operate, for up to six months, renewable no more than three times, and the FULL license as soon as it is in full compliance.
Who do I call with a question about a specific home's care?
The long-term care ombudsman, through the Berks County Area Agency on Aging at 610-478-6500, investigates complaints about the quality of care or treatment, confidentially and free. For a formal complaint about a nursing home, the Department of Health's line is 1-800-254-5164; for a personal care home or assisted living residence, the Department of Human Services licensing bureau is at 1-877-401-8835 or ra-pwarlcomplaints@pa.gov.
Sources
- Pennsylvania Department of Health, Nursing Care Facility Locator, its "Understanding Survey Results - Scope and Severity" page and its Definitions page (read November 2026): the county search, the survey links, the 41-day posting line, how a Statement of Deficiencies is laid out, the "snapshot" caution and the inspection interval.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, "Five-Star Quality Rating System": the three ratings and the overall rating, and CMS's cautions about using them.
- CMS, "Design for Care Compare Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating System: Technical Users' Guide" (September 2026): what each rating measures, the July 2025 change to two standard surveys plus three years of complaint inspections, the abuse icon, the Special Focus Facility display and the trophy icon.
- Medicare.gov, Care Compare and Medicare's booklet "Your Guide to Choosing a Nursing Home" (CMS product 02174, September 2025; Internet Archive capture of the Medicare.gov PDF, June 2026): how to search, what the inspection results show, and that ratings are not a substitute for a visit.
- CMS, State Operations Manual, Chapter 7, § 7203.3.2 (Rev. 244, June 2026): the scope-and-severity grid and the severity and scope definitions.
- 42 CFR § 488.301 and § 488.308: the definition of immediate jeopardy and the survey frequency rule.
- Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, "Personal Care Homes and Assisted Living Residences", its FAQ and its complaints page: who licenses and inspects these homes, how often, the tour advice and the complaint line.
- Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Human Services Provider Directory (read November 2026): the licensed personal care homes and assisted living residences by county, with license status, type and dates and the Inspection Summary for each.
- Human Services Code, § 1008, Provisional License and 55 Pa. Code Chapter 20: when a provisional license is issued, how long it runs and the annual, unannounced and complaint inspections.
- Pennsylvania Department of Health, nursing home complaints: the complaint line 1-800-254-5164.
- Berks County Area Agency on Aging, Ombudsman Services, the county's ombudsman brochure and the Berks County Area Agency on Aging page: what the ombudsman does, that the service is confidential and free, and the office's number.
- CMS memo QSO-23-01-NH, revised January 28, 2026 and CMS, "Special Focus Facility Initiative - Background": what the Special Focus Facility program is and how often those homes are inspected.
- Health Care Facilities Act, § 812, Provisional licenses: when the Department of Health issues a nursing home a provisional license for a specified period.