Chicopee Rehab: Weight Loss Miscoded for Cancer Patient - MA
The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 35, was admitted to the facility in July 2024. Her diagnoses when she arrived read like a catalog of compounding vulnerabilities: diabetes, small cell lung carcinoma with active chemotherapy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a C. diff infection, chronic kidney disease, anxiety, and depression. She weighed 163 pounds.
Advertisement
Losing sleep over a loved one's care?
The Derila Ergo memory foam pillow supports your neck in any sleep position. 60-day return policy.
See the Derila PillowBy December 1, 2024, she weighed 136.6 pounds. That is a loss of more than 26 pounds, or 16.2 percent of her body weight, over roughly five months.
A month-over-month comparison was no less alarming. Between November 4 and December 1, she dropped from 144.4 pounds to 136.6, a loss of 5.4 percent in a single month.
By the facility's own written policy, a loss of 5 percent in one month is significant. A loss greater than 5 percent is severe. A loss of 10 percent over six months is significant. Greater than 10 percent is severe.
She had crossed both thresholds.
On December 16, 2024, the facility completed a Minimum Data Set assessment, the standardized federal form nursing homes use to document resident health status and drive care planning. The form asked whether the resident had experienced a weight loss of 5 percent or more in the last month, or 10 percent or more in the last six months.
The facility answered no, or unknown.
Federal inspectors arrived in February 2025 and sat down with the facility's MDS Nurse on the morning of February 13. The two of them reviewed the weight records together. The MDS Nurse, looking at the same numbers that had been available since December, said that judging by the decrease in weight from July through December, the resident had experienced a significant weight loss of over 10 percent in six months.
She said it plainly, to a federal inspector, more than two months after the assessment was filed.
In a follow-up conversation that same afternoon, the MDS Nurse explained how the calculation should have worked: staff were supposed to use the most recent weight recorded in the 30 days closest to the December 16 assessment date. She said the assessment should have been coded as reflecting a weight loss of greater than 5 percent, or greater than 10 percent. It was not.
The MDS Nurse also offered an explanation for how errors like this happen. Sometimes, she said, staff complete the required sections of an assessment but don't fully sign off on them, so she goes in and completes them herself. She said the dietician is responsible for Section K, the portion of the MDS where weight information is assessed and documented.
Inspectors classified the violation as having the potential for minimal harm, the lowest level on the federal scale. That classification reflects what regulators believe could happen, not necessarily what did.
What is documented is this: a woman undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer, already contending with kidney disease and a serious intestinal infection, lost 26 pounds over five months. The form that was supposed to capture that fact, and trigger whatever clinical response the facility deemed appropriate, said it hadn't happened.
The assessment was filed on December 16. Inspectors arrived February 18. Nobody had corrected it in the two months between.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Chicopee Rehabilitation and Nursing from 2025-02-18 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Corrections: We strive for accuracy in everything we publish. If you believe any fact in this article is incorrect, please contact us with details, and we will review and correct it promptly.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: November 14, 2026 · Our methodology
CHICOPEE REHABILITATION AND NURSING in CHICOPEE, MA was cited for violations during a health inspection on February 18, 2025.
The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 35, was admitted to the facility in July 2024.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.