ANCHORAGE, AK - Federal health inspectors identified nine deficiencies at Centennial Post Acute during a complaint investigation completed on December 24, 2025, including a resident assessment coordination failure that resulted in documented actual harm. The Anchorage skilled nursing facility has not submitted a plan of correction for the cited violations.
The investigation, triggered by a formal complaint, revealed that the facility failed to properly coordinate resident assessments with the pre-admission screening and resident review (PASRR) program — a federal requirement designed to ensure nursing home residents receive appropriate care and services matched to their specific needs. The deficiency was classified at Scope/Severity Level G, indicating isolated actual harm that did not rise to the level of immediate jeopardy.
Federal Assessment Requirements and What Went Wrong
Under federal regulations — specifically F-Tag F0644 — nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid are required to coordinate comprehensive assessments with the state's Pre-Admission Screening and Resident Review program. This coordination is not optional. It is a foundational requirement of the nursing home certification process, mandated under 42 CFR § 483.20(k).
The PASRR program exists to accomplish two critical objectives. First, it ensures that individuals with serious mental illness, intellectual disabilities, or related conditions are not inappropriately placed in nursing facilities when they could be better served in community-based settings. Second, for those who are appropriately placed in a nursing home, the program guarantees that they receive the specialized services their conditions require — services that go beyond what a typical nursing facility provides.
When a facility fails to coordinate with the PASRR program, the consequences can be significant. Residents may be placed in settings that cannot meet their needs. They may go without specialized therapies, psychiatric services, or behavioral health interventions that are essential to their well-being. In this case, inspectors determined that the failure did not merely represent a paperwork lapse — it resulted in actual harm to at least one resident.
The distinction between a documentation deficiency and one that causes actual harm is critical in the federal enforcement framework. Scope/Severity Level G indicates that inspectors found concrete evidence that a resident experienced negative health or safety consequences as a direct result of the facility's failure to coordinate these assessments.
The Medical Significance of Assessment Coordination
Comprehensive resident assessment is the cornerstone of individualized care planning in skilled nursing facilities. The Minimum Data Set (MDS) assessment, which every nursing home must complete for each resident, captures detailed information about a person's physical health, cognitive status, behavioral patterns, functional capabilities, and psychosocial needs. When this assessment is properly coordinated with PASRR screening, it creates a complete clinical picture that drives every aspect of the resident's care.
Without proper PASRR coordination, critical information gaps can emerge. A resident with a history of serious mental illness, for example, may not receive the psychiatric medication management or counseling services they require. A resident with an intellectual disability may not receive the specialized programming and support services that enable them to maintain their highest practicable level of functioning. These are not minor oversights — they represent fundamental failures in the care delivery system.
The clinical consequences of missed or delayed specialized services can include medication mismanagement, deterioration in mental health status, increased behavioral episodes, social withdrawal, loss of functional abilities, and overall decline in quality of life. For vulnerable residents with complex conditions, even short gaps in specialized services can lead to measurable health setbacks that are difficult to reverse.
Nine Deficiencies Signal Broader Concerns
While the assessment coordination failure received the most serious severity classification, it was only one of nine deficiencies identified during the December 2025 inspection. The total number of citations during a single complaint investigation raises questions about the facility's overall compliance posture and quality management systems.
Federal nursing home inspections evaluate facilities across hundreds of regulatory requirements spanning resident rights, quality of care, infection control, staffing, pharmacy services, dietary standards, physical environment safety, and administration. When inspectors identify multiple deficiencies during a single visit — particularly during a complaint investigation rather than a routine annual survey — it often indicates systemic issues rather than isolated lapses.
A complaint investigation differs from a standard annual survey in important ways. Standard surveys are scheduled and comprehensive, covering all aspects of facility operations. Complaint investigations, by contrast, are triggered by specific allegations of problems and are typically narrower in focus. When inspectors conducting a targeted complaint investigation nevertheless identify nine separate deficiencies, it suggests that problems at the facility extend beyond the original complaint.
No Correction Plan Filed
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the inspection findings is that Centennial Post Acute has not submitted a plan of correction. Under federal regulations, facilities cited for deficiencies during inspections are required to submit a written plan of correction to the state survey agency and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This plan must describe the specific steps the facility will take to correct each deficiency, the measures it will implement to prevent recurrence, and the timeline for achieving compliance.
The plan of correction is not merely a bureaucratic formality. It represents the facility's acknowledgment of the problem and its commitment to protecting residents from ongoing harm. When a facility fails to submit a correction plan, it leaves regulators, residents, and families without assurance that identified problems are being addressed.
Facilities that do not submit timely plans of correction face potential enforcement actions, which can include civil monetary penalties, denial of payment for new admissions, and in severe cases, termination from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The absence of a correction plan may also factor into the facility's overall compliance history, which CMS considers when determining the appropriate level of regulatory oversight.
Alaska's Nursing Home Landscape
Alaska presents unique challenges for nursing home oversight and resident care. The state's geographic isolation, extreme weather conditions, and limited healthcare workforce create operational pressures that facilities in the lower 48 states do not face. Recruiting and retaining qualified clinical staff — including the specialized providers needed for PASRR-related services — is particularly difficult in Anchorage and across Alaska.
However, these challenges do not relieve facilities of their federal obligations. All nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid must meet the same minimum standards of care regardless of their geographic location. The federal regulatory framework recognizes no exceptions based on staffing difficulties or regional healthcare shortages.
Anchorage, as Alaska's largest city, has a relatively concentrated healthcare infrastructure compared to rural parts of the state. Facilities in the Anchorage area generally have greater access to specialists, community-based service providers, and workforce pipelines than those in more remote locations. This context makes the assessment coordination failures at Centennial Post Acute more difficult to attribute to external resource constraints.
What Families and Residents Should Know
For current residents and their families, the inspection findings underscore the importance of active engagement in the care planning process. Families have the right to participate in care plan meetings, to request copies of their loved one's MDS assessments, and to ask specifically whether PASRR screening has been completed and whether recommended specialized services are being provided.
Residents and their representatives also have the right to file complaints with the Alaska Department of Health if they believe they are not receiving appropriate care or services. Complaints can be filed confidentially, and the state is required to investigate allegations of substandard care.
The full inspection report for Centennial Post Acute, including details on all nine cited deficiencies, is available through the CMS Care Compare website, which provides inspection histories, staffing data, quality measures, and overall star ratings for every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the country. Reviewing this information can help families make informed decisions about facility selection and ongoing care monitoring.
Industry Standards for Assessment Coordination
Professional organizations including the American Health Care Association and the American Medical Directors Association have published detailed guidelines on assessment coordination best practices. These standards call for facilities to maintain systematic processes for identifying residents who require PASRR screening, for completing referrals within required timeframes, and for incorporating PASRR recommendations into individualized care plans.
Best-practice facilities designate a specific staff member — typically the MDS coordinator or director of nursing — as responsible for PASRR coordination. They maintain tracking systems to ensure that no resident falls through the cracks, and they conduct regular internal audits to verify compliance. These processes are not burdensome to implement, and their absence at a facility typically reflects a failure of administrative oversight rather than a lack of available resources.
The December 2025 inspection findings at Centennial Post Acute will remain part of the facility's public compliance record. Subsequent inspections will evaluate whether the identified deficiencies have been corrected and whether the facility has implemented systems to prevent recurrence. Families considering placement at this facility are encouraged to review the complete inspection history and to discuss the findings directly with facility leadership before making care decisions.
For the full inspection report, including all nine deficiency citations, visit the facility's profile on the CMS Care Compare database.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Centennial Post Acute from 2025-12-24 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
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