F242: Ensure residents have the right to have a choice over activities, their schedules, and health care according to their interests, assessments, and plans of care
F242 is one of the federal requirements every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home must meet. CMS describes it as: Ensure residents have the right to have a choice over activities, their schedules, and health care according to their interests, assessments, and plans of care.
It sits in CMS's resident rights category.
CMS Health Deficiencies file, data as of September 1, 2026. The files hold each home's last three standard inspections and three years of complaint visits.
How seriously inspectors rate it
Every citation gets a letter for how much harm inspectors found and how many residents it touched (how to read the letters). 0.0% of F242 citations came from a complaint visit rather than a routine inspection.
By letter: D 1.
What inspectors wrote
Three recent F242 citations from different states, quoted from the inspectors' statements of deficiencies (CMS form 2567). Names are removed by CMS.
Inspectors wrote, August 1, 2017, scope and severity DBased on interview and record review conducted during a recertification survey, the facility did not ensure that the right to make choices about aspects of life that were important to 1 of 3 residents reviewed for choices (#379) was provided. Specifically, the resident was not given the choice to choose between a bed bath and a shower.
St. Cabrini Nursing Home, Dobbs Ferry, NY
Most recent F242 citations
| Inspection | Home | Town | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 1, 2017 | St. Cabrini Nursing Home | Dobbs Ferry, NY | D |
F242 citations by state
Counts depend on how many homes a state has and how often its inspectors visit, so a larger number is not by itself a worse record.
| State | Citations |
|---|---|
| New York | 1 |
By inspection year: 2017 1.
Common questions
- What is F242 in a nursing home inspection?
- F242 is the federal requirement to "ensure residents have the right to have a choice over activities, their schedules, and health care according to their interests, assessments, and plans of care". CMS files it under resident rights. A home cited under F242 did not meet that requirement at the inspection.
- How often is F242 cited?
- The CMS files as of September 1, 2026 list 1 F242 citations at 1 nursing homes, 0 of them in the 12 months to that date. 0.0% were rated as actual harm or immediate jeopardy.
- Is a F242 citation serious?
- It depends on the letter. Most F242 citations (100.0%) were rated as potential for more than minimal harm, D to F. None in the current files is at the immediate jeopardy level.
The interpretive guidance inspectors use for each F-tag is CMS's State Operations Manual, Appendix PP. NursingHomeClear reports the citations as CMS records them and is not affiliated with CMS. All F-tags · Methodology