Pennypack Rehab: Medical Record Failures Found - PA
That finding sits at the center of a federal inspection completed at the Northeast Philadelphia facility in May 2026, which documented that staff failed to record any follow-up information after Resident 53 was transferred from an oncology appointment to a local hospital on March 13. No admitting diagnosis. No notes on the hospital stay. No documentation of the resident's discharge status. The nursing record simply stopped.
The timeline is brief and, in its brevity, the problem. A nursing note from March 13 at 12:51 p.m. recorded that Resident 53 had been transported to an oncology appointment. Five hours and forty-two minutes later, at 6:33 p.m., the resident was transferred from that appointment directly to a local hospital due to a change in condition. After that entry, the record goes quiet.
No one at the facility documented what the hospital found. No one recorded why the resident was admitted. No one noted when the resident was discharged, or whether the resident was discharged at all.
The Director of Nursing, identified in the inspection report as Employee E2, confirmed it during an interview with inspectors on May 21, 2026. There was no follow-up documentation. That was not disputed.
Inspectors cited the facility under Pennsylvania's medical records regulation, 28 Pa. Code 211.5(d), which governs the completeness and accuracy of clinical records. The violation was rated as having minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and it affected few residents. One resident was identified in the review of eight.
That rating, minimal harm, describes the regulatory category. It does not describe what it means to have a gap like this in a sick person's medical record.
Resident 53 was a cancer patient. The appointment on March 13 was an oncology visit, the kind of appointment that often carries significant clinical weight, updated treatment plans, test results, changes to medication, news that prompts decisions. Whatever happened at that appointment, whatever prompted the hospital transfer, whatever the hospital found and treated and ultimately concluded, none of it made it back into the nursing record at Pennypack.
That record is what the next nurse reads before administering medication. It is what a covering physician consults at 2 a.m. It is what a family member is shown when they ask what happened. When it ends mid-shift on a Thursday in March, the people caring for that resident afterward are working without the full picture.
Pennypack Rehab and Care Center is a skilled nursing facility operating in Philadelphia. The inspection was a standard health survey conducted on May 22, 2026.
The inspection report does not describe what happened to Resident 53 after the hospital transfer. It does not say whether the resident returned to the facility, whether the resident's condition improved or worsened, or whether anyone at Pennypack ever learned the outcome of that hospital stay through any channel other than a written record. It says only that whatever was learned, or whatever should have been learned, was never written down.
The Director of Nursing confirmed that. Inspectors noted it. The record reflects it.
Somewhere in that gap, between the last nursing note at 6:33 p.m. on March 13 and the inspection interview two months later in which a senior staff member acknowledged nothing had been documented, is a hospitalized cancer patient whose care team at the nursing home had no formal account of what the hospital found.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Pennypack Rehab and Care Center from 2026-05-22 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.
Corrections: We strive for accuracy in everything we publish. If you believe any fact in this article is incorrect, please contact us with details, and we will review and correct it promptly.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 31, 2026 · Our methodology
PENNYPACK REHAB AND CARE CENTER in PHILADELPHIA, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 22, 2026.
No documentation of the resident's discharge status.
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.