HATTON, ND - Federal health inspectors identified four deficiencies at Hatton Prairie Village during a standard health inspection in September 2025, including a citation for failing to properly honor residents' rights regarding treatment decisions and advance directives.
Advance Directive and Treatment Rights Deficiency
The inspection, conducted on September 24, 2025, found that Hatton Prairie Village did not adequately uphold residents' rights to request, refuse, or discontinue treatment. The citation, issued under federal regulatory tag F0578, also addressed the facility's obligations regarding resident participation in experimental research and the formulation of advance directives.
Advance directives are legally binding documents that allow individuals to outline their medical care preferences in the event they become unable to communicate those wishes. These documents include living wills and durable powers of attorney for healthcare, and they represent one of the most fundamental protections available to nursing home residents.
Federal regulations require that all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing facilities inform residents of their right to make decisions about their own care, including the right to accept or refuse medical treatment. Facilities must document these preferences and ensure that all staff members are aware of and follow each resident's stated wishes.
Why Treatment Rights Protections Matter
The right to direct one's own medical care is considered a cornerstone of patient autonomy. When nursing facilities fail to properly honor these rights, residents may receive unwanted medical interventions or, conversely, may not receive treatments they have specifically requested.
For elderly residents, particularly those with cognitive impairments, the proper documentation and communication of treatment preferences is essential. Without functioning systems to track and honor these decisions, residents risk having their most personal healthcare choices disregarded.
Advance directive failures can have serious medical consequences. A resident who has documented a preference against aggressive resuscitation measures, for example, could be subjected to unwanted CPR or intubation if staff members are unaware of or disregard those documented wishes. Conversely, a resident who wants all available life-sustaining treatments may not receive them if their preferences are not properly recorded and communicated across care teams.
Scope of the Inspection Findings
Inspectors classified the deficiency at Scope/Severity Level D, indicating an isolated incident with no documented actual harm but with the potential for more than minimal harm to residents. While this represents the lower end of the federal severity scale, it signals that the facility's systems for protecting resident rights had measurable gaps that required correction.
The advance directive citation was one of four total deficiencies identified during the September 2025 inspection. The presence of multiple citations during a single inspection cycle suggests areas where the facility's compliance protocols needed strengthening.
Industry Standards for Resident Rights Compliance
Best practices in long-term care require facilities to establish clear, documented processes for recording resident treatment preferences at the time of admission and updating them at regular intervals. Staff training should ensure that every member of the care team — from nurses to certified nursing assistants — understands how to locate and follow each resident's documented wishes.
Properly functioning facilities conduct regular audits of advance directive documentation, verify that treatment preferences are accurately reflected in care plans, and confirm that any changes in a resident's wishes are promptly communicated to all relevant staff members.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services considers resident rights protections a fundamental requirement for facility certification, and repeated failures in this area can lead to escalating enforcement actions.
Facility Response and Correction
Hatton Prairie Village has reported that corrections were implemented, with a correction date of October 27, 2025 — approximately one month after the inspection. The facility's status is listed as deficient with a provider-reported date of correction, indicating that the facility acknowledged the findings and took steps to address them.
Families of current and prospective residents can review the complete inspection results, including all four deficiencies cited during this inspection cycle, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Care Compare tool at medicare.gov. This federal database provides detailed inspection histories, staffing data, and quality measures for every certified nursing facility in the United States.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Hatton Prairie Village from 2025-09-24 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.