Primrose Post-Acute: Patient Records Left in Parking Lot - CA
Federal inspectors discovered the boxes during a complaint inspection on September 3, 2025. Inside them were facility invoices, including at least one pathology lab invoice from 2021 that contained a resident's full name, medical record number, date of birth, and itemized lab charges. The kind of information that, once it leaves a locked building and enters a parking lot, cannot be put back.
The maintenance supervisor told inspectors he had pulled the five boxes from storage and left them outside. He planned on disposing of them later. He did not say when later was.
The Director of Nursing said she had no idea the boxes were out there.
That gap, between what one employee did and what the facility's leadership knew, is the core of what inspectors documented. The maintenance supervisor acted. Nobody else in the building, apparently, noticed or asked. Two weeks passed.
When inspectors spoke with the Director of Nursing at 1:00 p.m. that afternoon, she was clear about what should have happened. Documents with resident information should not be left outside. When records need to be disposed of, they go into the shredder. She said this as though it were obvious, because it is. The facility's own privacy policy, updated as recently as April 2025, states that it maintains the privacy and confidentiality of residents' medical records.
The boxes were in the parking lot anyway.
The resident whose information appeared on the 2021 lab invoice, identified in inspection records only as Resident 3, had their name, date of birth, medical record number, and lab charges sitting outside in a cardboard box. The inspection classified the violation as causing minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted that some residents were affected.
Minimal harm is the lowest tier in the federal violation scale. It does not mean nothing happened. It means inspectors assessed that the exposure had not yet produced a documented injury. Whether Resident 3 or anyone whose records were in those boxes ever learned their information had been left in a parking lot, the inspection report does not say.
What the report does say is that the facility had a written policy. The policy was specific. It covered privacy, security, and breach notification. It referenced HIPAA. It was reviewed and dated five months before inspectors arrived. None of that stopped a maintenance supervisor from carrying five boxes of records out of storage and leaving them on asphalt, open to anyone who walked past.
Policies written in April do not enforce themselves in September.
The inspection was triggered by a complaint, meaning someone contacted regulators before inspectors ever arrived on the property. The report does not identify who filed the complaint or how they learned about the boxes. It is possible someone saw them. It is possible someone who worked at the facility made the call. The report does not say.
What it does say is that when inspectors arrived and asked questions, the maintenance supervisor confirmed he had left the boxes there and had not yet disposed of them. He had a plan. The plan was vague. The records sat outside while he waited to execute it.
The Director of Nursing, once informed, was unambiguous: this should not have happened. She described the correct procedure. She acknowledged the failure. Her awareness of the problem, as of September 3, 2025, came from a federal inspector, not from anyone inside the building who had noticed five boxes of patient records sitting in the parking lot for two weeks and thought to tell her.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Primrose Post-acute from 2025-09-03 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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 19, 2026 · Our methodology
PRIMROSE POST-ACUTE in INGLEWOOD, CA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 3, 2025.
Federal inspectors discovered the boxes during a complaint inspection on September 3, 2025.
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.