F500: Employ or obtain outside professional resources to provide services in the nursing home when the facility does not employ a qualified professional to furnish a required service
F500 is one of the federal requirements every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home must meet. CMS describes it as: Employ or obtain outside professional resources to provide services in the nursing home when the facility does not employ a qualified professional to furnish a required service.
It sits in CMS's administration 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 F500 citations came from a complaint visit rather than a routine inspection.
By letter: D 1.
What inspectors wrote
Three recent F500 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 interview and medical records review, it was determined that facility staff failed to follow doctor's orders and arrange a psychiatric evaluation of a resident who qualified for a professional evaluation from psychiatric services.
Larkin Chase Center, Bowie, MD
Most recent F500 citations
| Inspection | Home | Town | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 13, 2017 | Larkin Chase Center | Bowie, MD | D |
F500 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 F500 in a nursing home inspection?
- F500 is the federal requirement to "employ or obtain outside professional resources to provide services in the nursing home when the facility does not employ a qualified professional to furnish a required service". CMS files it under administration. A home cited under F500 did not meet that requirement at the inspection.
- How often is F500 cited?
- The CMS files as of September 1, 2026 list 1 F500 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 F500 citation serious?
- It depends on the letter. Most F500 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