Chestertown Nursing and Rehab: 41 Deficiencies Found - MD
One of those deficiencies involved pests.
Inspectors cited the facility under a federal standard requiring nursing homes to maintain an active pest control program capable of preventing and responding to infestations of mice, insects, or other pests. The facility had not met that standard. Inspectors classified the violation as isolated, meaning they did not find evidence the problem had spread throughout the building, but they did find potential for more than minimal harm to residents.
That potential is not abstract. Pests carry disease. Cockroaches can trigger asthma attacks and spread bacteria including salmonella and E. coli. Rodents contaminate food and surfaces and can bite sleeping residents, particularly those who are immobile or cognitively impaired and unable to call for help. A nursing home population, by definition, includes people whose immune systems are already compromised, whose mobility is already limited, and whose ability to protect themselves from a pest encounter may be severely reduced.
The facility reported it had corrected the pest control deficiency. The correction date on file is October 1, 2025, nearly seven weeks after inspectors first documented the problem.
Forty other deficiencies were cited alongside it.
The inspection report does not detail every one of those 41 violations in the available narrative, but the number itself carries weight. Federal inspectors use a structured process to identify and categorize problems. Each deficiency on that list represents something inspectors observed, documented, and determined fell short of the standards a nursing home is required to meet. Forty-one deficiencies in a single inspection is a significant finding for any facility.
The inspection was triggered by a complaint, not a scheduled survey. Complaint inspections are initiated when someone, typically a resident, family member, or staff member, contacts regulators with a specific concern. Inspectors who arrive in response to a complaint are looking for something in particular. That they found 40 additional problems beyond whatever prompted the complaint suggests the issues at Chestertown Nursing and Rehab were not confined to a single incident or a single corner of the building.
Chestertown is a small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore, with a population of roughly 5,000 people. For many families in the region, Chestertown Nursing and Rehab is not one option among many. It is the option. That context shapes what a 41-deficiency inspection means in practice. Residents and families in smaller communities often have less ability to transfer to another facility, less leverage to demand improvements, and fewer advocates outside the building's walls.
The pest control citation, classified as a scope and severity level D, sits at the lower end of the federal deficiency scale. Level D means isolated harm or potential for harm, not widespread, not causing actual documented injury. In a 41-deficiency inspection, it is easy to look past a level D finding about pests. It does not carry the immediate alarm of a medication error or a fall without proper precautions.
But pest control failures in nursing homes tend not to resolve themselves. They reflect maintenance practices, vendor relationships, staff reporting culture, and administrative follow-through, the same underlying systems that shape every other aspect of a facility's operation. A building that allowed its pest control program to lapse while under complaint investigation is a building with a systems problem, not just an exterminator problem.
The facility's stated correction date of October 1, 2025, gives it roughly six weeks from the inspection date to bring its pest control program into compliance. Whether inspectors will return to verify that correction, and what they find when they do, is not reflected in the current report.
What is reflected is this: on a summer day in August, federal inspectors walked into a Maryland nursing home in response to a complaint and found 41 things wrong. One of them was that the people living there, people who could not simply get up and leave, were not adequately protected from whatever might be crawling through the walls.
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 26, 2026 · Our methodology
CHESTERTOWN NURSING AND REHAB in CHESTERTOWN, MD was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 13, 2025.
One of those deficiencies involved pests.
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.