Zearing Health Care: Staff Verbal Abuse Left Unaddressed - IA
Federal inspectors cited Zearing Health Care, LLC following a complaint investigation conducted on August 27, 2025. The citation documents what happened to Resident 1 during the dinner meal on August 26, and what the facility did, and did not do, in the hours that followed.
Resident 1 was having trouble at the dinner table. She kept dropping her silverware. At some point she got stuck under the table, and Staff A, a certified nursing assistant, and another CNA had to move the table so she could sit back up. That was when Staff B walked into the dining room and said she had never seen the resident like this.
Staff A acknowledged what came next. She told inspectors she responded out of frustration: "she does this all the fucking time."
Staff D, another CNA who witnessed the remark, reported it to inspectors the following day. She said that after the outburst, Staff B stepped in and helped Resident 1 finish her meal. Staff D's shift ended at 6:30 that evening. When she left, Staff A was still on the floor.
Staff A confirmed it. After the incident at the dinner table, she finished helping Resident 1 eat, got her settled into bed, and said the rest of the night ran like normal.
Nearly eight and a half hours passed between the moment Staff A cursed at the resident and the moment anyone told her to leave.
At 9:55 PM, Staff B approached Staff A and told her that her language could be considered verbal abuse. Staff B had notified the facility administrator. The administrator's response was to direct Staff B to tell Staff A to leave the facility. Not to call her. Not to come find her. To send another staff member to deliver the message.
Staff A told inspectors she had no communication from anyone at the facility about the incident from the time it happened at dinner until Staff B found her at 9:55 PM and told her to go.
The facility's own abuse prevention policy, last reviewed in October 2024, required something different. The policy directed that all allegations of resident abuse be reported immediately to the charge nurse, who was then responsible for immediately reporting to the administrator or a designated representative. Upon receiving a report, the policy required the facility to immediately implement measures to prevent further potential abuse while an investigation was underway. For allegations involving an employee, that meant separating the accused employee from residents, through suspension, physical relocation within the facility, or, in rare instances, limiting contact with an accompanying supervisor present at all times.
None of that happened. Staff A remained on the floor, in contact with residents, for hours. The facility's own written procedures described exactly what should have been done. The gap between the policy and what actually occurred on the evening of August 26 is what federal inspectors documented.
The inspection report does not describe any investigation being initiated that night. It does not indicate that anyone checked on Resident 1 after Staff A put her to bed. It does not record whether anyone notified Resident 1's family, or whether Resident 1 was told what had happened, or whether she had any way of knowing that the person who had spoken about her that way was still working the floor.
What the record shows is this: a resident struggled at dinner, a staff member cursed about her within earshot of other staff, and the facility's response was hours of inaction followed by a secondhand message to go home.
Staff A, to her credit, did not deny what she said. She described feeling frustrated. She described finishing the meal with the resident and getting her settled. She described the night proceeding normally. The word she used, the context in which she used it, the fact that another CNA found it significant enough to report the following morning, and the fact that Staff B felt the need to approach Staff A nearly nine hours later and name it as potential verbal abuse, none of that is in dispute in the inspection record.
What is in dispute, implicitly, is whether the facility treated it with the urgency its own policy demanded.
The inspection was triggered by a complaint. The citation carries a scope and severity level indicating minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting few residents. That language is the regulatory floor, the minimum threshold met to issue a citation. It does not describe a ceiling on what the experience meant for Resident 1.
The report does not describe Resident 1's diagnosis, her cognitive state, or whether she understood what was said about her. It does not say whether she was frightened or confused during the dinner incident, or what it was like to be helped to bed that night by the same person who had said those words. The inspection record is silent on all of that. The citation covers what inspectors could document: the statement, the timeline, and the failure to act.
Zearing Health Care is a small facility in a small Iowa town. The inspection report runs five pages. This citation is the only one documented in those pages.
But the detail that stays is a specific one. Staff A told inspectors that after she was sent home at 9:55 PM, she had no further communication. Not about an investigation. Not about the resident. Not about what would happen next. She finished the night, delivered the care, and left when told to leave. The facility had reviewed its abuse prevention policy less than a year before this happened. The policy was clear. The night of August 26 went a different way.
Resident 1 was at the dinner table, struggling, dropping her silverware. Someone moved the table so she could sit up straight. Someone else helped her finish her meal. And sometime that evening, she was settled into bed, the night running like normal, while the question of what she had heard and what it meant for her safety sat unaddressed until nearly ten o'clock.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Zearing Health Care, LLC from 2025-08-27 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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 22, 2026 · Our methodology
Zearing Health Care, LLC in Zearing, IA was cited for abuse-related violations during a health inspection on August 27, 2025.
Federal inspectors cited Zearing Health Care, LLC following a complaint investigation conducted on August 27, 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.