Elkins Rehabilitation & Care Center: Accident Hazard Cited - WV
That finding, recorded under the federal tag F0689, is one of the most commonly cited deficiencies in American nursing homes. It is also one of the most consequential. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among adults 65 and older in the United States. In a nursing home setting, where residents may have dementia, muscle weakness, poor balance, or a combination of all three, an unaddressed hazard or a lapse in supervision can be the difference between an ordinary afternoon and a hospitalization.
The inspectors classified the deficiency as Scope/Severity Level D, meaning it was an isolated incident with no documented actual harm but with potential for more than minimal harm. That phrasing carries weight. It means inspectors believed something was wrong enough that a resident could have been seriously hurt, even if no injury had yet been recorded in the files they reviewed.
Elkins Rehabilitation & Care Center is a long-term care and rehabilitation facility in Randolph County, in the mountains of north-central West Virginia. The August inspection was a complaint investigation, meaning someone, whether a resident, a family member, or a staff member, had contacted regulators before inspectors arrived. The complaint process is how many nursing home problems come to light. Families notice things. Residents, when they are able, speak up. Staff sometimes report conditions they believe are unsafe. The inspection that followed produced four total deficiency citations, of which the accident hazard finding was one.
The facility reported that it had corrected the deficiency by September 30, 2025, roughly a month after the inspection. In federal oversight language, this is recorded as past non-compliance, meaning the problem existed, was cited, and the facility says it has been addressed. Whether the underlying conditions that created the hazard have been durably fixed, and whether supervision practices have changed in ways that will hold, is not something a correction date can confirm.
What the report does not contain is almost as telling as what it does. There is no description of what the specific hazard was. No wet floor, no unsecured equipment, no broken handrail, no call light out of reach. No resident is identified by name or number. No staff member is quoted. No administrator response is recorded. The narrative runs to fewer than 800 characters, which in the world of federal inspection reports is brief. Inspectors sometimes produce findings that stretch across dozens of pages, quoting interviews with staff and residents, reproducing medical record entries, documenting the specific moment a surveyor observed a problem. This report offers none of that.
That brevity is not unusual for a Level D citation, and it does not mean the underlying concern was minor. It means the public record, as released, gives a limited view of what inspectors actually saw.
The pattern of four deficiencies in a single complaint inspection is worth noting. Complaint surveys are targeted. Inspectors are not conducting a full annual review of every system in the building. They are responding to a specific concern. When a targeted inspection still turns up four separate findings, it suggests that whatever prompted the complaint may have been part of a broader set of conditions.
Nursing home residents in West Virginia, as elsewhere, are among the most vulnerable people in any community. Many cannot leave on their own. Many cannot fully articulate what is happening to them or around them. They depend on the facility, and on the regulatory system that oversees it, to catch problems before those problems become injuries.
The correction has been logged. The file has been closed. Somewhere in that building, residents are still moving through hallways, transferring from beds to chairs, walking to the dining room or the therapy gym. Whether the conditions that led an inspector to check the box marked "accident hazards" in late August have genuinely changed is a question the paperwork cannot answer.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Elkins Rehabilitation & Care Center from 2025-08-28 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.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 30, 2026 · Our methodology
ELKINS REHABILITATION & CARE CENTER in ELKINS, WV was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 28, 2025.
That finding, recorded under the federal tag F0689, is one of the most commonly cited deficiencies in American nursing homes.
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.