Highland Hills Post Acute: No Social Worker for 37 Days - PA
The gap ran from July 27 to September 2, 2025. It did not come to light through a resident complaint or a family member raising an alarm. It came to light because inspectors pulled payroll records.
Those records told a clean, simple story. Social Worker Employee E10's last day worked was July 27. Social Worker Employee E11's first day worked was September 2. In between: nothing. No coverage, no interim hire, no qualified replacement.
The Human Resources Director, identified in the inspection report as Employee E9, confirmed it directly when interviewed by inspectors on September 24. The facility had not employed a full-time qualified social worker during that period. There was no dispute about the dates, no alternative explanation offered.
Inspectors cited the deficiency under Pennsylvania state code governing social services in nursing facilities, as well as the broader code section on licensee responsibility.
The violation was categorized as having minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting many residents. That language is regulatory shorthand, and it can obscure what a social worker actually does inside a nursing home on any given day.
Social workers in these settings are typically the staff members who sit with a resident when a family stops visiting. They are the ones who coordinate a safe discharge plan when a resident is being sent home to a situation that may not be safe. They handle grievances. They identify residents who are showing signs of depression or anxiety and connect them with mental health resources. They are, in many facilities, the only staff member with the specific training to recognize when a resident's emotional or psychological needs are going unmet.
For 37 days at Highland Hills, that role belonged to no one.
The facility serves residents at 1105 Perry Highway in Pittsburgh. The inspection was conducted on September 25, 2025, as a complaint survey.
What the inspection report does not say is how many residents were at the facility during those 37 days, what specific needs went unaddressed, or whether any resident suffered a concrete harm that could be traced to the absence. The report's harm classification suggests inspectors did not find documented injury. But the classification of "potential for actual harm" affecting "many residents" reflects the reality that social work coverage is not a bureaucratic formality. It exists because facilities are required to recognize that residents have social and emotional needs that medical staff are not trained or positioned to meet.
A 37-day gap is not a scheduling hiccup. It is more than five weeks. It spans the period when a new resident might arrive, struggle to adjust, and have no one in that designated role to check in on them. It spans the period when a long-term resident's family situation might change, when a discharge might be planned, when a grievance might go unfiled because the person who handles grievances was not there.
The HR director's confirmation to inspectors was straightforward. There was no claim that other staff had absorbed the social worker's duties, no assertion that the gap was shorter than the payroll records showed. The records and the interview aligned.
Highland Hills Post Acute did not respond to a request for comment. For information on the facility's plan to correct the deficiency, the Pennsylvania Department of Health directs inquiries to the nursing home or the state survey agency directly.
The residents who lived at Highland Hills between July 27 and September 2 did not choose to go without a social worker. Most of them likely did not know they were entitled to one, or that the person who held that role had left and no replacement had been found. That is, in part, what made the gap possible for 37 days.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Highland Hills Post Acute from 2025-09-25 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 13, 2026 · Our methodology
HIGHLAND HILLS POST ACUTE in PITTSBURGH, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 25, 2025.
The gap ran from July 27 to September 2, 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.