The Merriman: Hiring Screening Failures Exposed - OH
The nurse, identified in inspection records only as LPN #824, was hired on June 25, 2024. When federal inspectors arrived at the Akron facility on November 13, 2025, as part of a complaint investigation, they pulled her personnel file. There was no evidence that an abuse registry check had ever been completed. No NAR check — the Nurse Aide Registry review used to screen for documented misconduct. No reference checks. Her name did not appear on the facility's background check log for June 2024. It didn't appear anywhere on that log.
By 10:47 that same morning, someone had run the NAR check. The timestamp was fresh. An official identified in the inspection report as RDO #567 confirmed it during an interview that afternoon.
"At least we did it today," RDO #567 said.
The review found the same pattern repeated for two certified nursing assistants hired just weeks before inspectors arrived. CNA #558 and CNA #554 both joined the facility on September 23, 2025. For both of them, reference check forms showed that listed contacts had been unable to be reached. For both of them, no completed reference checks existed in their personnel files.
HR Director #509, interviewed the morning of November 13, confirmed all of it. She said reference checks had not been completed before any of the three employees were hired. Her explanation was the same each time: the facility's practice was to make two attempts to reach a reference, document those attempts, and move forward with hiring if nobody answered.
Two calls. No answer. Hired.
RDO #567 offered the same account that afternoon. "In the past for reference checks, they attempted to call twice and the attempts were documented if there was no answer."
That was the system.
What the inspection report does not say is what LPN #824's background actually contained, or whether any of the three employees had a history that the checks might have uncovered. The inspectors cited the violation under F0606, which covers the requirement that facilities screen employees before allowing them to work with residents. The harm level was listed as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and the deficiency was noted as affecting many residents. It was flagged as an incidental finding during a complaint investigation, meaning inspectors discovered it while looking into something else entirely.
The abuse registry check is not a formality. Ohio, like every state, maintains a registry of nursing aides and other direct-care workers who have been found to have abused, neglected, or financially exploited residents. The NAR check pulls from that same database. These screens exist because a worker with a documented history of harming a resident at one facility can, without them, walk directly into a job at another.
At The Merriman, a worker did exactly that, without any of those screens having been run first. For seventeen months.
The facility is located at 209 Merriman Road in Akron, a residential neighborhood on the city's west side. The inspection was completed November 26, 2025.
What the records show is a hiring process that treated the inability to reach a reference as equivalent to having checked the reference. Two unanswered calls, logged, and the file was considered complete enough to proceed. The abuse registry and NAR checks for LPN #824 were simply never done, and nobody noticed, or nobody acted on it, until inspectors were already inside the building reviewing files.
RDO #567's comment — "at least we did it today" — came after confirming that the check had been timestamped roughly two hours before that conversation. The implication was clear: the facility had run the check that morning, after inspectors arrived, to cover a gap that had existed since the summer of 2024.
HR Director #509 did not dispute any of the findings. She confirmed the reference checks were not completed. She confirmed there was no evidence of the NAR or abuse registry checks. Her account of the facility's practice, that two attempts were sufficient regardless of outcome, suggested this was not an oversight specific to LPN #824 or the two CNAs hired in September. It was policy.
The inspection report does not identify what complaint originally triggered the investigation, and it does not describe any incident involving LPN #824, CNA #558, or CNA #554. The three employees are identified only by number. What the report establishes is that for a period spanning at least seventeen months, the facility was placing workers in direct contact with residents without completing the background screening those residents' families would reasonably assume had happened before anyone walked into a room.
The September hires are a separate thread. CNA #558 and CNA #554 were both brought on the same day, both without completed reference checks. The forms in their files documented that contacts couldn't be reached. Under the facility's apparent practice, that documentation was enough. The CNAs were hired. They began working. The reference checks were never completed.
There is no indication in the inspection report that the facility flagged any of this internally before inspectors arrived. The background check log for June 2024 had no entry for LPN #824. Nobody added one in the fifteen months between her hire date and the inspection.
The plan of correction for the deficiency is not included in the publicly available inspection document. Readers seeking that information are directed to contact the facility or the Ohio state survey agency.
What the inspection leaves behind is a straightforward sequence: a nurse hired in June 2024, no abuse registry check, no NAR review, no reference checks, seventeen months of working with residents, and a timestamp on a database query logged the morning inspectors were already in the building asking questions.
"At least we did it today."
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for The Merriman from 2025-11-26 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 20, 2026 · Our methodology
THE MERRIMAN in AKRON, OH was cited for violations during a health inspection on November 26, 2025.
The nurse, identified in inspection records only as LPN #824, was hired on June 25, 2024.
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.