<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3mP2Wx_1ELLVwSn00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3mP2Wx_1ELLVwSn00" width="1200" height="542" ><figcaption>Signature Health’s Portland facility. GOOGLE MAPS</figcaption></figure>A Portland nursing home facility has been fined over $171,000 by Tennessee inspectors in the last two years, but that information is no longer available on the state Department of Health’s website unless you know to ask about it.The Tennessee Health Facilities Commission, which has governed the licensure and inspection of health care facilities since July 2022, recently began removing investigation and inspection records from its website (internet.health.tn.gov/FacilityListings), according to media reports and verified by Main Street Media.Investigation and inspection reports are also made available to the federal government, specifically the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS), which makes the reports available to the public online at data.cms.gov/provider-data/datasets?keyword[]=Citations.One care facility, Signature Health of Portland Rehab &amp; Wellness Center, has incurred $171,234 in fines from August 2024-December 2025, according to reports located via CMS, which listed 12 total deficiencies in that time. Not all 2026 inspection reports are yet available.Other Sumner County care facilities have multiple deficiencies noted in various reports but have no fines. Gallatin Center For Rehabilitation And Healing had 10 deficiencies noted in its 2025 report, NHC Healthcare Hendersonville had two deficiencies in 2025, NHC Place Sumner had two deficiencies in its 2026 report, The Waters of Gallatin had six deficiencies in its 2026 report and Westmoreland Care &amp; Rehab Center had three deficiencies in its 2026 report.Signature HealthCare did not respond to a request for comment from Main Street Media.Two other websites – hospitalinspections.org and projects.propublica.org/nursing-homes/ also make the reports available. Both websites, as well as CMS, already have patient identifying information removed from the reports.The reported deficiencies at the Portland facility included a patient who received third-degree burns after urine came in contact with a power strip in the patient’s bed, a reported involuntary discharge of a patient dealing with a mental issue apparently caused by infection and failing to provide CPR to a patient found unresponsive and without a pulse.The reports available on ProPublica also noted an average nurse turnover of 67.9 percent, well above the state average of 48.9 percent.Logan Grant, Executive Director of the Health Facilities Commission, told Main Street Media the removal of the reports came at the advice of legal staff, who cited personal health information (PHI) that could violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which puts limits on who can see and share patient medical data.“In early 2023, my legal staff brought it to my attention that these forms contain personal health information of patients at the facilities we inspect. At that time they were all posted to the website unredacted,” Grant said in an email to Main Street Media. “We took the matter to the Attorney General’s Office, who agreed with that assessment and informed us that we must either 1) Redact all PHI from all 2567s (EDITOR’S NOTE: Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction) or 2) remove them all from the website. There were more than 100,000 pages of these forms on the website at the time – with more constantly being generated by outlet ongoing inspections. We lack the manpower to redact all of them, so I made the decision to remove them from the website and establish a process whereby they could be requested and our legal staff would redact the forms in accordance with state laws and regulations.”While the reports are no longer available through the state’s website, they are available via an open records request. But those requests must be specific, can take weeks to receive a response and can incur costs by the requestor.According to Grant, CMS uses an artificial intelligence program to remove patient information, something he said the state does not currently have the capability of doing.“The forms are generated by HFC but are shared with CMS, which redacts them using AI and makes them available on their website. It is my understanding that ProPublica pulls the redacted forms from the CMS website,” Grant said in an email to Main Street Media.“We do not presently have the ability to use AI to perform redactions, and so they are made by our legal staff.”Grant did say THFC was in the process of adding a link to the CMS website to its own page to make public access easier.In a television interview, ProPublica staff confirmed that the reports it receives from CMS are already redacted.“We do not redact any information,” said Ruth Talbot, who oversees ProPublica’s Nursing Home Inspect site. “When the reports come to us, they already have resident names and very specific medications removed so that we’re not exposing anyone’s private data.”</div></body>

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A Portland nursing home facility has been fined over $171,000 by Tennessee inspectors in the last two years, but that information is no longer available on the state Department of Health’s website unless you know to ask about it. The Tennessee Health Facilities Commission, which has governed the licensure...

State removes nursing home inspection reports

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A Portland nursing home facility has been fined over $171,000 by Tennessee inspectors in the last two years, but that information is no longer available on

State removes nursing home inspection reports

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