Regency Care Center: Elopement Risk Failure - IA
The evaluation for Resident 7 was due August 18. It had not been completed when inspectors arrived two days later. Staff told inspectors they would submit it that same day, August 20, while the survey was underway.
Elopement risk evaluations exist for one reason: to identify residents who might wander or attempt to leave a facility unsupervised, and to put protections in place before something goes wrong. A resident who slips out undetected can face traffic, extreme heat or cold, disorientation, falls, and worse. The assessment is the first line of that protection. At Regency Care Center, it wasn't done on time.
Inspectors classified the violation as causing minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting a small number of residents.
The inspection was triggered by a complaint, not a routine survey cycle. That means someone, whether a resident, a family member, or a staff member, contacted authorities with a concern. The August 20 visit was the result.
What the report does not say is whether Resident 7 had a history of wandering, whether they were on a memory care unit, or whether anyone had flagged the missing evaluation internally before inspectors walked through the door. The record shows only that the evaluation was overdue, that inspectors found it overdue, and that staff moved to complete it on the spot.
Regency Care Center is located at 815 High Road in Norwalk, a city of roughly 12,000 people south of Des Moines. The facility's CMS identification number is 165399.
For a family member who placed a relative at Regency Care Center trusting that basic safety protocols were being followed on schedule, the two-day gap is not an abstraction. It is the window in which something could have happened and nobody would have known the evaluation was missing until after the fact.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Regency Care Center from 2025-08-20 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 14, 2026 · Our methodology
Regency Care Center in Norwalk, IA was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 20, 2025.
The evaluation for Resident 7 was due August 18.
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.