Polaris Extended Care
Medicare’s overall rating for this home. The inspection part of it is graded on a curve against other Alaska homes, so a star here does not mean what it means in another state.
Staffing
Where the benchmark comes from
Staffing is the measure most closely linked to how residents do, and the one families almost never see. How much nursing care a resident needs depends on how sick they are, so we compare this home against the level its own residents are expected to need. The marker on the first two bars shows that level. It is a research benchmark, not a legal limit. The hours shown are the hours the home filed with Medicare, before any adjustment for how sick its residents are.
What inspectors found
Inspectors visit every nursing home and write up what they find. This home has 84 findings on record going back to 2023, 19 of them after someone filed a complaint. Of the 84, 69 are from the last three years.
The 10 serious findings here
Quality of care
A resident did not get treatment and care that followed their orders, their own preferences and their goals.
The home fixed this on December 3, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F684Provide appropriate treatment and care according to orders, resident’s preferences and goals.
Resident not protected from abuse or neglect
The home did not protect a resident from abuse or neglect by anyone.
The home fixed this on July 9, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F600Protect each resident from all types of abuse such as physical, mental, sexual abuse, physical punishment, and neglect by anybody.
Bladder and bowel care
A resident did not get proper help with continence care.
The home fixed this on July 9, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F690Provide appropriate care for residents who are continent or incontinent of bowel/bladder, appropriate catheter care, and appropriate care to prevent urinary tract infections.
Medication errors
The home did not keep a resident free of a significant medication error.
The home fixed this on April 4, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F760Ensure that residents are free from significant medication errors.
Medicines not supplied properly
The home did not provide the medication services residents needed, or did not use a licensed pharmacist.
The home fixed this on April 4, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F755Provide pharmaceutical services to meet the needs of each resident and employ or obtain the services of a licensed pharmacist.
Poorly run
The home was not managed in a way that let it provide proper care.
The home fixed this on September 2, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F835Administer the facility in a manner that enables it to use its resources effectively and efficiently.
Daily skills not kept up
The home did not give a resident the care needed to keep the abilities they still had, where the loss was not for a medical reason.
The home fixed this on September 2, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F676Ensure residents do not lose the ability to perform activities of daily living unless there is a medical reason.
Poor quality of life
The home did not provide the care and services residents needed to live as well as they could.
The home fixed this on September 2, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F675Honor each resident's preferences, choices, values and beliefs.
Not enough staff
The home did not have enough nursing staff to care for its residents.
The home fixed this on September 2, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F725Provide enough nursing staff every day to meet the needs of every resident; and have a licensed nurse in charge on each shift.
Failure to investigate
The home did not properly look into a reported incident.
The home fixed this on September 2, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F610Respond appropriately to all alleged violations.
Everything on record
19 of the 20 nursing homes in Alaska have fewer findings of harm or immediate jeopardy on record than this one.
Medicare also blocked payment for new admissions at this home for 8 days, starting August 25, 2024.
What these levels mean
JImmediate jeopardy The most serious finding there is. Medicare’s words: noncompliance that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death. About 2 in every 100 findings nationally.
GActual harm A resident was really hurt, not just put at risk. About 3 in every 100 findings.
The letter is Medicare’s own code for how many residents were involved. Immediate jeopardy covers J, K and L. Actual harm covers G, H and I. The later the letter, the more residents were affected.
The plain-English line under each finding describes the rule the inspector cited. It is not an account of what happened. Medicare’s own wording of the rule is printed with it, and the full inspection report is the record of the incident.
This home has 1 finding under three federal tags that are counted together, and they do not all mean abuse: F600 is abuse or neglect, F602 is the wrongful use of a resident’s belongings or money, and F603 is involuntary seclusion. Medicare also publishes a separate abuse warning icon, which is narrower and time-limited, and this home also carries it.
What you can do
Numbers only go so far. These are two things most families do not know they can do.
Ask for today’s staffing sheet
Every nursing home must post how many nurses are working each shift, keep 18 months of it, and show it to you on request. Ask for today’s, then last Saturday’s. Weekends are when staffing thins out.
Call the ombudsman before you decide
Every state has a free, confidential long-term care ombudsman. You can ask how many complaints a specific home has had and what they were about. You can find your state’s office through its department of aging.
Where this comes from
Inspection findings, staffing hours, fines and star ratings on this page are published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency, and are current as of August 1, 2026. We reload after each monthly release, and the footer of every page shows both the release date and the date we loaded it. The federal ID for this home is 025036.
What these numbers do not say
Fines can be appealed and reduced. The amount shown is what CMS had recorded as of this release. Medicare’s penalties file covers a rolling window of the last few years rather than a home’s whole history, so this is what Medicare publishes today and not everything this home has ever been fined. The year beside the figure above is the earliest fine Medicare still lists for it.
The level of care residents here are expected to need, and the gap, are not Medicare figures. We work them out from this home’s own Medicare case-mix score using the published CASE formula (Harrington and others, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2025). It is a research benchmark, not a legal limit.
Inspection findings are recorded by state inspectors on behalf of Medicare. Staffing hours come from payroll records the home files with Medicare, and Medicare audits a sample of them. Star ratings partly reflect quality measures the home reports about itself, which is why we show inspections and staffing separately rather than only the star.