Powder River Manor: Survey Results Hidden From Public - MT
Inspectors visiting Powder River Manor found the wall-mounted holder empty on the afternoon of September 8, 2025, at 1:18 p.m. The holder sits in the common area TV room, visible from the facility's entrance, and it is where the nursing home is required to keep its state inspection records available for anyone who wants to read them. Residents, families, and members of the public are all entitled to walk in and look.
Nobody could. The binder was gone.
When inspectors returned two days later, on the morning of September 10, the holder was still empty. Whatever had happened to the binder, it had not come back.
Later that morning, inspectors spoke with a staff member identified in the report only as Staff Member D. She said she had not realized the binder was missing. She said she would look into where it might be.
About forty minutes later, she came back with an answer, and the answer was that she didn't have one. She told inspectors she did not know why the binder had not been in the holder. Her best guess was that someone had pulled it to the nurses station for some reason and never returned it.
Then she said something that captured the whole problem in a single sentence: "It's one of those things, just in walking by it every day, you forget to think of that being there or not."
That is the kind of explanation that sounds reasonable until you consider what the binder contains. Survey results are not a decorative item. They are the record of what state inspectors found when they came to evaluate the facility, including any violations, any patterns of harm, any deficiencies that required correction. Families choosing a nursing home for a parent or spouse are entitled to read those records. Residents living inside the facility are entitled to know those records are available to them.
The requirement exists precisely because nursing homes have a documented history of not volunteering unflattering information. The public display rule is a floor, not a ceiling. At Powder River Manor, even that floor had a hole in it.
The inspection cited the deficiency under F0577, which covers residents' rights to access survey information and to communicate with advocacy agencies. Inspectors classified the level of harm as minimal, or potential for actual harm, and noted the violation affected few residents. The facility has roughly 25 licensed beds, according to state records, and sits in Powder River County, one of the least populated counties in Montana.
Small facilities in rural areas face real challenges. Staffing is harder. Resources are thinner. The nearest large city is hours away. None of that changes what was on the wall, or what wasn't.
The inspection report does not say how long the binder had been missing before the September 8 visit. It could have been hours. It could have been weeks. Staff Member D's explanation, that someone might have pulled it to the nurses station for something, does not suggest it was treated as an urgent item to track down. Her other explanation, that you stop noticing something when you walk past it every day, suggests the opposite.
There is no indication in the report that the binder was located and returned to the holder during the inspection period. The report notes only that Staff Member D said she would check on it.
A family driving to Broadus to look at Powder River Manor for a relative, walking through the front entrance, seeing the holder labeled "SURVEY RESULTS," reaching in and finding nothing, would have had no way of knowing whether the facility had a clean record or a troubled one. They would have had to ask, or leave, or trust that the empty holder meant nothing in particular.
It meant something.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Powder River Manor from 2025-09-10 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: June 29, 2026 · Our methodology
POWDER RIVER MANOR in BROADUS, MT was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 10, 2025.
Inspectors visiting Powder River Manor found the wall-mounted holder empty on the afternoon of September 8, 2025, at 1:18 p.m.
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.