F253: Provide housekeeping and maintenance services
F253 is one of the federal requirements every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home must meet. CMS describes it as: Provide housekeeping and maintenance services.
It sits in CMS's environmental 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 F253 citations came from a complaint visit rather than a routine inspection.
By letter: E 1.
What inspectors wrote
Three recent F253 citations from different states, quoted from the inspectors' statements of deficiencies (CMS form 2567). Names are removed by CMS.
Inspectors wrote, May 18, 2017, scope and severity EBased on observation while conducting the initial facility tour and confirmed while conducting environmental rounds with facility staff, the facility failed to ensure that resident areas were kept clean and in good repair.
Complete Care at Severna Park LLC, Severna Park, MD
Most recent F253 citations
| Inspection | Home | Town | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 18, 2017 | Complete Care at Severna Park LLC | Severna Park, MD | E |
F253 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 |
|---|---|
| Maryland | 1 |
By inspection year: 2017 1.
Common questions
- What is F253 in a nursing home inspection?
- F253 is the federal requirement to "provide housekeeping and maintenance services". CMS files it under environmental. A home cited under F253 did not meet that requirement at the inspection.
- How often is F253 cited?
- The CMS files as of September 1, 2026 list 1 F253 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 F253 citation serious?
- It depends on the letter. Most F253 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