Sanilac Medical Care: PASARR Screening Failure - MI
The deficiency at Sanilac Medical Care Facility, cited August 21, 2025, involves a federal screening process known as PASARR, which stands for Preadmission Screening and Resident Review. The process exists for a specific reason: nursing homes are not always the appropriate setting for people with serious mental illness or intellectual disabilities, and the screening is meant to catch that mismatch before someone is placed, or to identify it after the fact.
When a facility skips that step, or fails to complete it properly, residents who might qualify for more specialized care somewhere else never get the chance to find out.
Federal inspectors classified the violation as a Level D deficiency, meaning the lapse was isolated and no actual harm was documented. But the classification also carries a specific finding: there was potential for more than minimal harm. That phrase, in the language of federal nursing home oversight, is not a formality. It means inspectors believed something bad could have happened.
The PASARR deficiency was one of eight separate deficiencies cited against Sanilac Medical Care during the same inspection. The report does not describe the other seven in this filing, but eight citations in a single complaint inspection is not a routine outcome.
Sanilac Medical Care is a county-operated facility, part of a category of nursing homes that have historically served residents who have fewer options, including people on Medicaid, people with complex psychiatric histories, and people who have aged out of other systems of care. Those are precisely the residents the PASARR process was built to protect.
The facility reported a correction date of September 30, 2025, roughly five weeks after the inspection. Whether the correction involved completing screenings for specific residents who had been missed, updating intake procedures, retraining staff, or some combination of those steps, the inspection report does not say.
What the report does say is that at the time inspectors walked through the door, the screening process had broken down somewhere. A resident, or more than one, had moved through the facility's admission or review process without the mental health and intellectual disability evaluation that federal oversight requires.
PASARR screenings are not a bureaucratic checkbox. They were written into federal law after decades of concern that people with mental illness were being warehoused in nursing homes rather than receiving psychiatric care, community-based services, or other supports better matched to their needs. A resident who never gets screened is a resident whose needs may never get properly identified, whose placement may never get questioned, and whose options may quietly disappear.
The potential for harm in a missed screening is not always visible. It does not show up as a bruise or a fall or a medication error. It shows up as a person spending months or years in a setting that was never evaluated for whether it was right for them.
Sanilac Medical Care has until the end of September to demonstrate it has fixed the problem. The inspection record will reflect whether it does.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Sanilac Medical Care Facility from 2025-08-21 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 13, 2026 · Our methodology
Sanilac Medical Care Facility in Sandusky, MI was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 21, 2025.
Federal inspectors classified the violation as a Level D deficiency, meaning the lapse was isolated and no actual harm was documented.
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.