Golden Age Manor: Dietary Manager Lacks Required Credentials - WI
That was April 7. By April 9, the administrator of Golden Age Manor was learning that neither certificate was the one the facility needed.
The inspection, completed April 10, 2025, found that the 60-bed nursing home had been operating without a dietary manager who met minimum federal qualification requirements. The deficiency was listed as affecting all 60 residents.
The inspector toured the kitchen on the morning of April 7 with the facility's dietary manager, identified in the report only as DM D. When asked about her qualifications, she pointed to two framed certifications on her office wall. The inspector requested copies.
What came back was a Food Protection Manager certification, issued August 10, 2023, by the Always Food Safe Company and accredited by the American National Standards Institute and the Conference for Food Protection. Valid through 2028.
It is a food safety credential. It is not a Certified Dietary Manager credential.
When the inspector returned on April 9, DM D was unavailable. The inspector sat down instead with Nursing Home Administrator A. The first question: does the facility have a full-time dietician on site?
No, the administrator said. The dietician works fully remote.
The inspector then asked for any evidence the remote dietician was monitoring compliance in the kitchen. The administrator provided nothing.
On the question of the dietary manager's credentials, the administrator offered an explanation. The facility's understanding, she said, was that the Food Protection Manager certification satisfied a category in the federal regulations covering "similar national certification for food service management and safety from a national certifying body."
The inspector investigated further and told the administrator directly: the certificate does not meet the requirement for Certified Dietary Manager.
The gap between the two credentials is not a technicality. A Certified Dietary Manager credential requires coursework in clinical nutrition, therapeutic diets, and the nutritional needs of residents with specific medical conditions. A food protection certification covers safe food handling, temperature control, and contamination prevention. Both matter in a nursing home kitchen. They are not the same thing.
Golden Age Manor has 60 residents. The inspection report noted the deficiency could potentially affect all of them.
The facility's remote dietician arrangement drew no separate citation in this inspection, but the administrator's inability to produce any documentation that the dietician was actively monitoring kitchen operations went uncontested in the report.
Inspectors rated the harm level as minimal, meaning they did not find evidence that residents had been injured as a result. That rating reflects what inspectors could document during a three-day visit, not a guarantee of what had or hadn't happened in the months or years the credential gap existed.
The certification on DM D's wall was issued in August 2023. The inspection took place in April 2025. The report does not say how long DM D had been in the role, or whether anyone at the facility had reviewed her credentials against federal requirements before the inspector asked.
What the report does say is that when the administrator was told the certification didn't qualify, she had no alternative documentation to offer. No backup credential. No record of a waiver. No evidence the remote dietician had been filling the supervisory gap.
The certifications are still on the wall.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Golden Age Manor from 2025-04-10 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.
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Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 29, 2026 · Our methodology
GOLDEN AGE MANOR in AMERY, WI was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 10, 2025.
By April 9, the administrator of Golden Age Manor was learning that neither certificate was the one the facility needed.
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.