Trinity Homes: Advance Directive Rights Violations - ND
Federal health inspectors cited the facility in August 2025 for failing to honor residents' rights to request, refuse, or discontinue treatment and to formulate advance directives. The violation was one of 15 deficiencies documented during the inspection.
An advance directive is among the most personal documents a person can create. It is the written record of what someone wants done, and what they don't want done, to their own body when they can no longer speak for themselves. A do-not-resuscitate order. A refusal of a feeding tube. A limit on hospitalization. These are not preferences to be weighed against staff convenience or administrative routine. They are legal expressions of a person's autonomy over their own medical care.
Inspectors classified the violation as scope and severity level D, meaning it was isolated in nature, with no actual harm documented, but with the potential for more than minimal harm to residents. That distinction matters. No harm documented is not the same as no harm possible. A resident whose advance directive goes unacknowledged or unimplemented in a moment of medical crisis doesn't get a second chance to have their wishes honored.
The deficiency falls under the category of resident rights, a classification that covers the most fundamental protections nursing home residents hold. The right to refuse treatment is not a bureaucratic formality. For elderly and seriously ill residents, it is often the last meaningful control they have over their lives.
Trinity Homes was one of 15 deficiencies cited across the same inspection. The advance directive violation did not stand alone. It was part of a broader pattern of findings that inspectors documented in a single visit, a visit that was prompted by a complaint.
The facility reported a correction date of September 27, 2025, roughly six weeks after the inspection. What changed between August 14 and September 27 is not detailed in the inspection record. Whether staff received training, whether specific residents' directives were reviewed and updated in their files, whether the residents whose rights were implicated were ever informed that a problem had been identified, none of that is documented in what inspectors made public.
What is documented is the gap itself. A nursing home in North Dakota, in 2025, was found to have fallen short of one of the most basic obligations it holds toward the people in its care: the obligation to let them say no.
That obligation exists because the alternative is a system in which residents, many of them cognitively impaired, many of them unable to advocate for themselves in real time, are subject to treatment decisions made without their input or in contradiction of instructions they gave when they were still able to give them. An advance directive is, in many cases, the only voice a resident has left.
The inspection report does not name the residents affected. It does not describe what treatment was at issue, or whether any resident was subjected to a procedure they had refused, or whether a directive was missing from a file, or whether staff had simply failed to consult documents that existed. The finding is narrow in its public detail. But the category of harm it points toward is not narrow at all.
Fifteen deficiencies in a single complaint inspection is a significant number. Each one represents an area where inspectors determined the facility had fallen below the standard of care residents are entitled to receive. The advance directive violation, isolated and without documented harm, sits among them, a reminder that the rights at stake in a nursing home are not only about physical safety. They are about whether a person's most fundamental decisions about their own body are treated as binding, or as suggestions.
Trinity Homes has not publicly responded to the findings. The correction the facility reported is logged in the federal record. Whether the residents whose directives were at issue ever learned what happened to their rights during those weeks, the record does not say.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Trinity Homes from 2025-08-14 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 19, 2026 · Our methodology
TRINITY HOMES in MINOT, ND was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 14, 2025.
The violation was one of 15 deficiencies documented during the inspection.
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.