Valley View Village: PASARR Screening Failure - IA
The problem surfaced during a complaint investigation completed April 30, 2026. Federal health inspectors cited the facility for failing to conduct or document required PASARR screenings, a pre-admission process designed to determine whether residents with mental disorders or intellectual disabilities are being placed in the right care setting and receiving the right level of support. The deficiency was one of three cited during the inspection.
PASARR stands for Preadmission Screening and Resident Review. It is not a minor paperwork formality. The screening process exists because nursing homes are not always the appropriate placement for people with serious mental illness or intellectual disabilities, and because those residents, once placed, are entitled to specialized services that a standard nursing home may not be equipped to provide. When the screening doesn't happen, or doesn't happen correctly, there is no reliable way to know whether a resident is in the right place or getting what they need.
Inspectors classified the violation at Scope and Severity Level D, meaning it was isolated in nature but carried potential for more than minimal harm. No actual harm to a resident was documented in the inspection record. What the record does document is a gap in the process meant to prevent harm from occurring in the first place.
The more striking detail is what came after. As of the inspection record, Valley View Village had filed no plan of correction.
Facilities cited for deficiencies are generally expected to respond with a plan describing how they will fix the problem and by when. That response is a basic part of the accountability structure built around nursing home inspections. Valley View Village had not provided one.
That silence matters. A facility can correct a paperwork problem. It can retrain staff. It can audit its admissions process and catch residents who were never properly screened. None of that is possible without first acknowledging what went wrong and committing to a specific remedy. Without a correction plan, there is no timeline, no responsible party, and no mechanism for anyone, including regulators, to verify that anything has changed.
The residents most affected by a PASARR failure are, by definition, among the most vulnerable in any nursing home. People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, intellectual disabilities, or other qualifying conditions are entitled under federal guidelines to individualized services, psychiatric care, and ongoing review of whether their placement continues to meet their needs. If the initial screening was skipped or incomplete, those determinations may never have been made. A resident could be living at Valley View Village right now without anyone having formally assessed whether the facility is equipped to serve them, or whether a different setting would serve them better.
The complaint investigation that triggered the April 30 inspection was not described in detail in the public record. What prompted someone to file a complaint, and whether it related directly to the PASARR failure or to something else entirely, is not known from the available documents. What is known is that inspectors arrived, looked at admissions practices, and found a gap serious enough to cite.
Valley View Village received three deficiency citations total during the inspection. The other two were not detailed in the available record. Whether they compound the picture of the PASARR failure, or point to separate areas of concern, cannot be determined from what inspectors disclosed.
What can be determined is this: a nursing home in Des Moines was found to have failed a screening process designed to protect residents with mental illness and intellectual disabilities. The failure carried potential for harm. The facility was told. And then, according to the inspection record, nothing came back.
Somewhere in that facility, there are residents whose mental health histories and disability status may never have been formally reviewed against the question of whether they belong there and what care they are owed. The screening was supposed to answer that question before they ever moved in.
It did not. And the facility has not said when, or whether, it will.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Valley View Village from 2026-04-30 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: July 18, 2026 · Our methodology
Valley View Village in Des Moines, IA was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 30, 2026.
The problem surfaced during a complaint investigation completed April 30, 2026.
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.