Chestertown Nursing and Rehab: 41 Deficiencies Found - MD
One of those 41 citations involved behavioral health training, a category that covers how staff are prepared to recognize and respond to the psychiatric and emotional needs of residents living with dementia, depression, anxiety, and other conditions that are common in long-term care settings.
Inspectors found the facility had not provided behavioral health training consistent with what its own facility assessment required. The citation fell under regulatory tag F0949, which governs whether a nursing home is actually delivering the staff training its assessment says residents need.
The scope and severity rating was a D, meaning inspectors treated it as an isolated problem with no documented harm to any resident, but with the potential for more than minimal harm if left unaddressed.
That distinction matters. A D-level rating is among the lower tiers of severity on the federal scale, but it is not a clean bill of health. It means inspectors looked at the gap between what the facility said it would do and what it had actually done, and concluded that residents could be hurt by that gap, even if none had been yet.
Behavioral health training failures carry particular weight in a nursing home environment because the residents most likely to be affected are often the least able to report a problem themselves. A resident with advanced dementia cannot easily tell a family member that a staff member handled a behavioral episode badly, restrained them unnecessarily, or failed to recognize that agitation was a symptom of pain rather than a conduct problem. The training exists precisely because those situations require judgment that has to be taught.
The facility reported a correction date of October 1, 2025, roughly seven weeks after the inspection.
What the other 40 deficiencies involved is not detailed in this citation. But 41 deficiencies in a single inspection is a substantial total. For context, a typical nursing home inspection might produce a handful of citations. Forty-one suggests inspectors found problems moving across multiple departments and care categories, not a single lapse in one corner of the building.
Chestertown Nursing and Rehab is the only skilled nursing facility in Chestertown, a small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore. For residents and families in that part of Kent County, it is not a facility they can easily compare against a competitor down the road or transfer away from without significant disruption.
The August inspection was triggered by a complaint, meaning someone, a resident, a family member, a staff member, or an outside party, contacted regulators with concerns serious enough to prompt a visit. Complaint inspections are distinct from routine annual surveys. They happen because something specific prompted them.
The behavioral health training deficiency was not the complaint that triggered the inspection. Complaint inspections frequently uncover additional problems beyond whatever originally drew inspectors to a facility, which is part of why the deficiency count reached 41.
Federal nursing home inspections operate on a finding system where each deficiency is tagged, rated, and assigned a correction deadline. A facility that receives a deficiency is required to submit a plan of correction and demonstrate that the problem has been fixed by the date it reports. Whether the October 1 correction date for the behavioral health training deficiency reflects a genuine fix, a policy update on paper, or something more substantive is not something the inspection record alone can answer.
What the record does say is that on August 13, 2025, staff at Chestertown Nursing and Rehab were not receiving the behavioral health training that the facility's own assessment had determined they needed. And that in a building where residents with dementia, depression, and behavioral health conditions depend on those staff members every hour of every day, that gap existed.
Forty-one times, inspectors wrote something down.
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: November 3, 2026 · Our methodology
CHESTERTOWN NURSING AND REHAB in CHESTERTOWN, MD was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 13, 2025.
Inspectors found the facility had not provided behavioral health training consistent with what its own facility assessment required.
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.