Ross Mann | September 3, 2026 | Nursing Home Abuse
Kentucky Nursing Home Ratings and Inspection Reports: A 2026 Guide for Families
Kentucky nursing home ratings and inspection reports can be especially important because most families do not get months to choose a nursing home. Usually, a parent or spouse is about to leave the hospital, a discharge planner says a bed sore is open, and the family has a day or two to make decision. That is how it really happens.
A clean lobby does not tell me much. Neither does a scheduled tour where everybody knows you are coming. I represent Kentucky families in nursing-home cases. When I look at a facility, I do not start and stop with the stars beside its name. I want the inspection history. I want the staffing rating, the complaint findings, the ownership information, and what the state and federal surveyors actually wrote down.
Those records will not tell you everything. But they can tell you plenty. This guide shows you where to find them and what I think a family ought to look for before trusting a nursing home with somebody they love.
The Short Answer
Check the overall rating. Then click past it. Look at the health-inspection rating and staffing separately. Read the complaints and serious deficiencies. Check the penalties, ownership, and whether CMS put an abuse icon beside the facility. Then go to the nursing home and pay attention. The rating is where you start. It is not where you stop.
How Many Kentucky Nursing Homes Have Low Ratings?
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, listed 267 active Medicare- or Medicaid-certified nursing homes in Kentucky in its August 2026 Provider Information data. Here is what the numbers showed:
59 had an overall rating of one star, which CMS describes as much below average.
44 had an overall rating of two stars, which CMS describes as below average.
103 of the 267 facilities – about 38.6 percent – had an overall rating of one or two stars.
Two facilities did not have an overall rating in that data release.
A low rating is not a jury verdict and it does not prove what happened to one particular resident. But let us not pretend the numbers mean nothing. Almost four out of every ten Kentucky nursing homes were sitting at one or two stars. That is a reason to ask hard questions and look past the brochure.
Source: CMS Provider Information dataset, processed August 1, 2026 and released August 26, 2026
Twenty Large Kentucky Nursing Homes With One-Star Overall Ratings
The table below lists the 20 largest Kentucky nursing homes that had a one-star overall rating in the August 2026 CMS data. Each facility had at least 120 certified beds. I listed them by size. These are not ratings I made up. CMS rated every facility in this table one star overall, which CMS calls much below average.
Jump to: Louisville | Lexington | Eastern Kentucky | Northern Kentucky
| Facility | City | Beds | Health stars | Staffing stars | CMS abuse icon |
| Eastway Health & Rehabilitation | Louisville | 252 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Spring Creek Post-Acute Rehabilitation Center | Murray | 226 | 1 | 2 | No |
| Hazard Health and Rehabilitation Center | Hazard | 200 | 1 | 4 | No |
| Somerwoods Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center | Somerset | 166 | 2 | 4 | No |
| Sayre Christian Village Nursing Home | Lexington | 164 | 2 | 4 | No |
| Belmont Terrace Nursing and Rehabilitation Center | Florence | 151 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Florence Park Care Center | Florence | 150 | 1 | 2 | No |
| Hartland Park Health & Rehabilitation | Lexington | 150 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Mt. Sterling Health & Rehab, LLC | Mount Sterling | 144 | 1 | 2 | No |
| Harlan Health and Rehabilitation Center | Harlan | 143 | 2 | 4 | No |
| Salyersville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center | Salyersville | 142 | 1 | 2 | Yes |
| Sunrise Manor Nursing Home | Hodgenville | 137 | 1 | 3 | No |
| Barbourville Health and Rehabilitation Center | Barbourville | 135 | 1 | 3 | No |
| Stanford Crossing | Stanford | 128 | 1 | 2 | No |
| Wurtland Nursing and Rehabilitation | Wurtland | 126 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Mountain Manor of Paintsville | Paintsville | 126 | 2 | 2 | No |
| Somerset Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility | Somerset | 123 | 2 | 1 | No |
| River Oaks Health & Rehabilitation | Louisville | 122 | 2 | 1 | No |
| Carter Nursing and Rehabilitation | Grayson | 120 | 1 | 1 | Yes |
| Lexington Premier Nursing & Rehab | Lexington | 120 | 1 | 1 | No |
Important: CMS gave every facility in this table a one-star overall rating as of the date shown. That means CMS rated the facility much below average. Families are entitled to know that and should take it seriously. Ratings can change, so check the facility’s current Care Compare page and read the actual inspection reports.
What Does a One-Star Nursing Home Rating Mean?
CMS uses five stars. Five means much above average. One means much below average. But the overall number is built from three separate areas:
Health inspections. This rating is based on findings from standard inspections and complaint investigations. The most recent findings receive the most weight.
Staffing. This rating considers nursing hours reported for residents, including registered-nurse and total nurse staffing. CMS adjusts staffing information to account for differences in resident needs.
Quality measures. These measures use resident-assessment and claims information concerning matters such as hospitalizations, function, falls, pressure injuries, medication use, and other outcomes.
The overall rating begins with the health-inspection rating. CMS can move it up or down based on staffing and quality measures, subject to certain limits. That is why I pay close attention to the inspection score. A nursing home can have a bad inspection history even when one of its other numbers looks pretty good.
CMS explains the current calculation in its Five-Star Quality Rating System Technical Users’ Guide.
Why Families Should Read the Actual Inspection Reports
Read the actual report. That is usually where the real information is. The report may tell you what the surveyor saw, which federal rule the nursing home violated, how many residents were put at risk, and whether the surveyor believed somebody was actually harmed.
Do not just count citations. Ten minor paperwork findings may matter less than one serious finding involving medication errors, infection control, falls, pressure injuries, poor supervision, dehydration, or a failure to call a doctor.
Repeated problems matter too. If the same failure keeps showing up in different surveys, I want to know why it was not fixed the first time. Read the plan of correction, but understand what you are reading. It tells you what the nursing home promised to do after it got cited. It does not erase what happened.
Where Can You Find Kentucky Nursing Home Inspection Reports?
Start with Medicare Care Compare. Search by ZIP code, city, or facility name. Open the facility page and review the overall, inspection, staffing, and quality-measure ratings.
Open the inspection section. Read the descriptions of recent deficiencies and complaint investigations. Note the survey dates because older findings receive less weight in the federal rating.
Check Kentucky’s Nursing Home Inspection Findings page. The Kentucky Office of Inspector General posts completed survey and complaint findings by facility and year.
Request records if the report is not online. Kentucky warns that survey and complaint materials are posted only after the survey process is complete. The Cabinet provides an open-records process for records that are not yet posted or that require a separate request.
Save a copy. Ratings and online records can change. Download the report or save a PDF showing the date on which you reviewed it.
Federal search tool: Medicare Care Compare
Kentucky reports: Kentucky Nursing Home Inspection Findings
Records requests: Kentucky OIG Open Records Requests
What Is the CMS Abuse Icon?
Care Compare uses an abuse icon for certain recent abuse-related citations. Under CMS’s July 2026 method, the icon may appear after a harm-level abuse citation in the most recent survey cycle or after repeated abuse citations that meet CMS’s rules. While those criteria apply, the facility’s health-inspection rating cannot go above two stars.
If you see that icon, take it seriously. Then open the reports. Find out what the surveyors said happened, how serious they believed it was, and which regulation the nursing home violated.
A Good Rating Does Not Guarantee Good Care
Do not let five stars end your investigation. Surveys are snapshots. Staffing changes. Administrators leave. Companies buy and sell facilities. A serious injury or complaint that happened last week may not be in the public data yet.
The reverse is also true. One star does not prove a neglect case by itself. The real questions are what happened to the resident, what the staff knew, what care was required, what the staff failed to do, and whether that failure caused an injury.
Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Nursing Home
Who owns the facility, and which company manages its daily operations?
How long have the administrator and director of nursing been at the facility?
What is the facility’s registered-nurse coverage at night and on weekends?
How often does the facility use agency or temporary staff?
What were the facility’s most recent serious citations, and what changed afterward?
How does the facility prevent falls, pressure injuries, dehydration, medication errors, and avoidable hospital transfers?
How quickly will the family be notified after an accident or a change in condition?
Can the family review the current inspection report and speak with the resident council?
Do not judge the place by the lobby. Walk the resident hallways. Look at the residents. Notice call lights, odors, unanswered requests, and how the staff talk to people who cannot help themselves. Visit more than once if you can. A weekend evening may tell you a whole lot more than a Tuesday morning tour.
Kentucky Residents Have a Right to Inspection Information
Kentucky law gives nursing-home residents and their families the right to important information. KRS 216.515 provides access to facility inspection reports. It also requires immediate notice to the responsible party or family after an accident, sudden illness, disease, unexplained absence, or something unusual involving the resident. Those rights are not favors from the nursing home. They are in Kentucky law.
Read the statute: KRS 216.515.
What Should You Do If You Suspect Neglect or Abuse?
First, protect the resident. Call 911 if there is immediate danger or the resident needs emergency medical care. If it is not a 911 situation, there are still things a family should do right away:
Write down dates, names, conversations, and changes in the resident’s condition.
Photograph visible injuries or unsafe conditions when it is lawful and appropriate to do so.
Keep copies of hospital records, discharge papers, care plans, bills, messages, and letters.
Ask questions in writing and save the facility’s responses.
Report suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation to Kentucky Adult Protective Services.
Contact the Kentucky Office of Inspector General about a complaint involving a licensed facility.
Contact the Kentucky Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program for resident advocacy and help addressing care concerns.
Kentucky Adult Protective Services can be reached at 1-877-597-2331 or 1-877-KYSAFE1. The Kentucky Long-Term Care Ombudsman hotline is 1-800-372-2991. Online reports are not a substitute for calling 911 when there is an emergency.
What I Look for When Reviewing a Kentucky Nursing Home Case
When I review a nursing-home case, I do not just ask whether the facility had one star or five. I ask what happened to this resident. What did the staff know? What did the care plan say? When did the resident start going downhill? Who noticed it? Who called the doctor? And what did the nursing home do, or fail to do, after it knew there was a problem?
The records that matter often include the chart, care plans, medication records, physician orders, incident reports, hospital records, staffing records, schedules, policies, training materials, electronic audit trails, and earlier survey findings. Ownership matters too. The company name on the sign out front is not always the only company making money from or exercising control over the nursing home.
A bad rating may point me in the right direction. It does not prove the case. The evidence still has to show what the nursing home knew, what it should have done, what it failed to do, and whether that failure caused harm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a one-star rating prove nursing-home negligence?
No. It means CMS rated the facility much below average under its system. That matters, but a lawsuit still requires proof about the care given to the particular resident and whether the nursing home’s failure caused an injury.
Can a highly rated nursing home still be responsible for neglect?
Yes. Ratings summarize past information. A serious event can happen at a highly rated nursing home, and the public data may not show it yet. Five stars are not immunity from a lawsuit.
Where do I find a Kentucky nursing home’s complaints?
Start with Medicare Care Compare and Kentucky’s Nursing Home Inspection Findings page. If a completed report is not posted, contact the Kentucky Office of Inspector General about its open-records process.
Should I rely only on the overall star rating?
No. Look at the inspection, staffing, and quality-measure ratings separately. Then read the actual reports and go visit the facility. The big number does not tell the whole story.
How often do nursing-home ratings change?
CMS updates the public information regularly as new inspection, staffing, and quality data become available. Families should check the current facility page rather than relying on an old screenshot or article.
Talk With a Kentucky Nursing Home Lawyer
If your loved one was seriously injured or died after questionable care in a Kentucky nursing home, do not expect the star rating to give you the answer. It will not. The records have to be investigated. And that needs to happen before video is overwritten, electronic audit information disappears, schedules get harder to obtain, and witnesses forget what they saw.
Ross Mann Nursing Home and Medical Negligence Lawyers represents families in nursing-home neglect, abuse, medical negligence, and wrongful-death cases across Kentucky. If something does not add up about the care your family member received, call our Lexington office at (859) 413-3900 for a confidential consultation.
Sources and Publication Notes
CMS Provider Information dataset
CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System
CMS July 2026 Technical Users’ Guide
Kentucky Nursing Home Inspection Findings
Kentucky OIG Open Records Requests
Kentucky Adult Protection Branch
Kentucky Long-Term Care Ombudsman
Legal disclaimer: This article provides general information and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Nursing-home ratings, inspection findings, contact information, and laws may change. Consult the current official sources and obtain legal advice concerning any specific situation.