F425: Provide routine and emergency drugs through a licensed pharmacist and only under the general supervision of a licensed nurse
F425 is one of the federal requirements every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home must meet. CMS describes it as: Provide routine and emergency drugs through a licensed pharmacist and only under the general supervision of a licensed nurse.
It sits in CMS's pharmacy service 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 F425 citations came from a complaint visit rather than a routine inspection.
By letter: D 1.
What inspectors wrote
Three recent F425 citations from different states, quoted from the inspectors' statements of deficiencies (CMS form 2567). Names are removed by CMS.
Inspectors wrote, July 13, 2017, scope and severity DBased on observation, staff interview and clinical record review the facility staff failed to ensure medications were acquired to meet the needs of 1 of 30 residents in the survey sample, Resident #19. The facility staff failed to ensure Potassium Chloride 20 mEq (milliequivalent) was available for administration as ordered for Resident #19.
Portsmouth Health and Rehab, Portsmouth, VA
Most recent F425 citations
| Inspection | Home | Town | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 13, 2017 | Portsmouth Health and Rehab | Portsmouth, VA | D |
F425 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 |
|---|---|
| Virginia | 1 |
By inspection year: 2017 1.
Common questions
- What is F425 in a nursing home inspection?
- F425 is the federal requirement to "provide routine and emergency drugs through a licensed pharmacist and only under the general supervision of a licensed nurse". CMS files it under pharmacy service. A home cited under F425 did not meet that requirement at the inspection.
- How often is F425 cited?
- The CMS files as of September 1, 2026 list 1 F425 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 F425 citation serious?
- It depends on the letter. Most F425 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