Chestertown Nursing and Rehab: 41 Deficiencies - MD
The deficiency, cited under the infection control category, found that the facility had failed on three connected fronts. It had not adequately educated residents and staff about COVID-19 vaccination. It had not consistently offered the vaccine to eligible residents and staff following that education. And it had not properly documented vaccination status for the people living and working inside its walls.
Inspectors rated the violation at scope and severity level D, meaning it was isolated in nature and no actual harm had been documented. That designation does not mean the situation was without consequence. Level D citations carry a finding of potential for more than minimal harm, a standard that carries particular weight inside a nursing home, where residents are typically older, managing multiple chronic conditions, and more vulnerable to severe outcomes from respiratory illness than the general population.
The gap between "no actual harm documented" and "no harm possible" is not a small one in a congregate care setting. Inspectors cannot document harm that hasn't happened yet. What they can document is a system that isn't working, and that is what they found here.
The COVID-19 vaccination requirement for nursing homes has been in place for years. The expectation is not complicated: facilities are supposed to tell residents and staff what the vaccine is, offer it to those who are eligible, and write down what everyone decided. Chestertown Nursing and Rehab, according to inspectors, was not doing all three of those things correctly.
The facility reported a correction date of October 1, 2025, roughly seven weeks after the inspection.
What the August 13 inspection does not explain is how a facility reaches the point of 41 cited deficiencies in a single visit. That number covers the full range of what federal inspectors examine, from care planning and medication management to resident rights and physical environment. The COVID-19 vaccination tracking failure was one thread in a much larger picture of regulatory shortcomings that inspectors documented that day.
Forty-one deficiencies is not a number that accumulates from a single bad afternoon. It reflects systems, staffing patterns, and management decisions that inspectors found lacking across multiple areas of care. The vaccination documentation failure, while rated at the lower end of the severity scale, sits inside that broader context.
For the residents of Chestertown Nursing and Rehab, the question of who around them has been vaccinated against COVID-19 is not an abstraction. They eat in shared dining rooms. They receive care from staff who move between rooms throughout a shift. They attend group activities. Many of them cannot choose to simply distance themselves from others the way someone living independently might. Their protection depends, in part, on the facility knowing and managing the vaccination status of everyone in the building, and being able to demonstrate that it has done so.
The inspection report does not name any resident who contracted COVID-19 as a result of this failure. It does not describe an outbreak. What it describes is a facility that could not show inspectors it was doing what it was required to do to prevent one.
The correction date of October 1 means the facility had approximately 49 days from the inspection to bring its vaccination education, offering, and documentation practices into compliance. Whether that correction held, and what the other 40 deficiencies cited that same day revealed about conditions inside the building, are questions the August 13 inspection report alone cannot answer.
What it can answer is narrower and more specific: on a summer Wednesday in a small Maryland town, federal inspectors found a nursing home that did not know, with confidence, who among its residents and staff had been vaccinated against a virus that has killed more Americans in nursing homes than in almost any other setting. The paperwork wasn't there. The education hadn't happened the way it was supposed to. And 41 other things were wrong too.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Chestertown Nursing and Rehab from 2025-08-13 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: October 24, 2026 · Our methodology
CHESTERTOWN NURSING AND REHAB in CHESTERTOWN, MD was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 13, 2025.
The deficiency, cited under the infection control category, found that the facility had failed on three connected fronts.
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.