Nursing home inspection reports in Texas
Licensed nursing facilities are inspected by the state under federal and Texas rules. When a surveyor cites a deficiency, CMS records a tag, a scope-and-severity letter, the survey date, and whether a correction was later recorded. NursingCareLookup lists those fields from the public CMS Health Deficiencies file when that file is on hand. We do not reprint the official narrative on this site.
Standard surveys and complaint surveys
A standard survey is the periodic inspection a certified home is scheduled to receive. A complaint survey is opened in response to a specific complaint. A citation can be associated with one or both. Infection-control inspections are also flagged in the CMS file when that field is present. The survey type is a fact about how the finding was recorded, not a verdict we add.
Scope and severity letters
Each health citation carries a letter from A through L. The letter combines two ideas: how widely the problem was found (isolated, a pattern, or widespread) and how serious the harm was or could have been (from a potential for minimal harm up to immediate jeopardy). The grid below is a plain-language reading of those letters. Official definitions are in CMS guidance.
| Harm level | Isolated | Pattern | Widespread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Immediate jeopardy | J | K | L |
| Actual harm | G | H | I |
| Potential for more than minimal harm | D | E | F |
| Potential for minimal harm | A | B | C |
Isolated means one or a very small number of residents. Pattern means more than a few, but not most. Widespread means it affected a large portion of the facility or its systems. These are plain-language readings of the federal letter codes; the official definitions live in CMS guidance.
What a citation is — and is not
A citation is a recorded finding of noncompliance on a survey. It is not a criminal charge, and it is not a review written by this site. Facilities may dispute a finding through informal dispute resolution and other appeal rights. A successful appeal can alter or remove a citation. The file we display can lag those outcomes.
People often search for “nursing home violations” or “nursing home inspection reports Texas.” This page is the place to start. On a facility page, we show the tag, a short label for the letter, the survey type, the date, and the correction status recorded in the file. For the official text of a finding, use TULIP (Texas’s live provider search) or Medicare.gov for certified homes. This site does not scrape TULIP.
How to report a problem
To report abuse or neglect, call the Texas Abuse Hotline at 800-252-5400. To complain about a nursing facility, call HHSC at 800-458-9858. Those are official channels, not this website.
Related: glossary of citation terms and Special Focus and abuse icons.