Nursing Home Quality Ratings in Arkansas: How to Check Inspections, Complaints, and Star Ratings

Start With CMS Care Compare — But Don't Stop There

Medicare's Care Compare tool (medicare.gov/care-compare) is the fastest way to pull up quality data on any licensed nursing home in Arkansas. Search by city, ZIP code, or facility name and you'll get a profile for each facility that includes an overall star rating (1 to 5 stars), plus separate ratings for health inspections, staffing levels, and quality measures.

The overall star rating is a composite — CMS calculates it by weighting the three sub-categories. A facility can have strong quality measures but poor inspection results and still land at 3 stars. That's why looking at the sub-ratings matters more than the headline number.

What Care Compare tells you:

• Health inspection rating: Based on the last three years of state survey results, weighted toward the most recent survey. This is where you'll see whether the facility has been cited for deficiencies and how serious they were.
• Staffing rating: Based on total nursing hours per resident per day, including RN hours specifically. RN hours are one staffing signal to compare alongside inspection results and quality measures.
• Quality measures rating: Drawn from clinical data — fall rates, pressure ulcer incidence, urinary tract infections, use of physical restraints, antipsychotic medication rates.

What Care Compare doesn't tell you: how the facility feels at 7 PM on a Tuesday. The data can lag current conditions (surveys happen annually, sometimes less frequently), and quality measures are based on resident assessment and Medicare claims data rather than a direct measure of every resident's experience. Use it as a screening tool, not a final verdict.

How to Read CMS Form 2567 — the Actual Inspection Report

Every nursing home in the United States undergoes periodic state surveys conducted by the Arkansas Office of Long Term Care (OLTC), acting as CMS's survey agent. The results are documented on CMS Form 2567, formally called the "Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction."

This is the single most revealing document you can access about any Arkansas nursing home. You can find it through Care Compare (click on the facility, then look for the "Health Inspections" tab and the linked survey reports), or you can request it directly from the facility — they're required by federal law to post the most recent Form 2567 in a public area.

When reading a Form 2567, focus on:

Scope and severity codes. Each deficiency gets a letter grade from A (isolated, no harm) to L (widespread, immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety). "G" through "I" indicate actual harm that is not immediate jeopardy. "J" through "L" indicate immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety. A facility with J-level deficiencies in the past three years deserves extreme scrutiny.

The pattern of deficiencies. A single F-level citation for a paperwork issue is not alarming. The same facility getting cited for infection control failures on three consecutive surveys tells you the problem is structural, not incidental.

The Plan of Correction. The right column of Form 2567 contains the facility's written plan to fix each deficiency. Look for specificity — "we will retrain all staff" is weaker than "Nursing Director Jane Smith will conduct wound care audits every Monday and report results to the administrator by Wednesday." Vague correction plans often signal that the facility isn't taking the deficiency seriously.

Staffing Data: What the Numbers Mean for Your Parent's Care

Staffing is one of the most useful indicators of nursing home quality. Staffing reports are useful, but minimums and adequate care are not the same thing.

CMS publishes facility-level staffing data based on Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) reporting — actual hours worked, not scheduled hours. For each Arkansas facility, you can see:

• Total nursing hours per resident day (RN + LPN + CNA combined)
• RN hours per resident day specifically
• Weekend staffing levels (which tend to be lower and reveal the facility's true operational posture)

As a comparison point, CMS staffing-study thresholds are roughly 4.1 total nursing hours per resident per day, with at least 0.75 RN hours. A facility running below 3.5 total hours per resident day deserves closer scrutiny, but hours alone do not predict a specific response time or care outcome.

When you visit an Arkansas nursing home in person, verify the posted staffing schedule against what you actually see. Walk the halls at different times — mid-morning (when care demands peak), late afternoon (shift change), and evening (when staffing typically thins out). Count the number of aides on the floor and compare it to the posted schedule.

How to File and Check Complaints in Arkansas

If you suspect a problem at a specific facility — or want to check whether others have reported issues — the complaint process in Arkansas runs through two agencies depending on facility type:

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities: File complaints with the Office of Long Term Care (OLTC) under the Department of Human Services Division of Provider Services and Quality Assurance (DPSQA). You can file by email ([email protected]), phone (1-800-582-4887), or through the online portal at the ADHS eLicensing site. Complaints can trigger an investigation; investigation findings and outcomes may be reflected in the facility's public inspection history and later survey records.

Home health agencies and hospice providers: File complaints with the Arkansas Department of Health, Health Facility Services division, at (501) 661-2201 or (800) 223-0340.

You can also contact the Arkansas Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program if you want a less adversarial path. Ombudsman advocates visit facilities regularly, investigate complaints confidentially, and work to resolve issues through mediation. They're housed under the Division of Aging, Adult, and Behavioral Health Services (DAABHS) and operate through the regional Area Agencies on Aging.

Evaluating Assisted Living Facilities — Different Rules Apply

Assisted living quality data is harder to access than nursing home data because assisted living facilities in Arkansas are not rated through the CMS star system. Only nursing homes (skilled nursing facilities) participate in CMS Care Compare.

For assisted living, your research tools are:

• State inspection results: The OLTC surveys assisted living facilities and publishes findings through the ADHS eLicensing portal. The reports follow a similar deficiency-and-correction format, though the regulatory standards being measured are different — they're based on the state's Level I and Level II licensing requirements rather than federal Medicare conditions of participation.
• The facility's Comprehensive Disclosure Statement: Arkansas requires every assisted living facility to provide a detailed disclosure document before admission, covering services, fees, staffing, discharge criteria, and refund policies. Reviewing this document carefully is one of your best quality-assessment tools.
• Direct verification of license level: Confirm whether the facility holds a Level I or Level II license. This distinction determines whether the facility can administer medications, provide nursing assessments, and accept residents who need physical transfer assistance. A Level I facility that's housing residents who actually need Level II services is both dangerous and in violation of state regulations.

Putting the Data Together Before a Decision

Numbers and inspection reports give you a baseline. But choosing a nursing home or assisted living facility for your parent requires layering that data with direct observation — the smell of the hallways, the tone of voice staff use with residents, whether the activity calendar reflects real programming or just a printed sheet.

Our Arkansas care decision guide includes a structured facility evaluation framework that combines the regulatory data described above with the on-site observations that matter most. It walks through the specific Arkansas licensing thresholds, the clinical levels of care, and the quality indicators that separate a facility that's meeting minimum standards from one that's actually providing good care.

See more Arkansas guides →