Fitchburg Rehabilitation and Nursing Center
Medicare’s overall rating for this home. The inspection part of it is graded on a curve against other Massachusetts 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 41 findings on record going back to 2022, 5 of them after someone filed a complaint. Of the 41, 35 are from the last three years.
The 5 serious findings here
Care below professional standards
The care the home gave did not meet the standards that trained health workers are expected to follow.
The home fixed this on March 11, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F658Ensure services provided by the nursing facility meet professional standards of quality.
Doctor not told of results
The home did not quickly tell the doctor about lab test results that were not normal.
The home fixed this on March 11, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F773Provide or obtain laboratory tests/services when ordered and promptly tell the ordering practitioner of the results.
Doctor and spokesperson not told
The home did not quickly tell the doctor, or the person who speaks for the resident, about a major change.
The home fixed this on April 15, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F580Immediately tell the resident, the resident's doctor, and a family member of situations (injury/decline/room, etc.) that affect the resident.
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 April 15, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F684Provide appropriate treatment and care according to orders, resident’s preferences and goals.
Bedsores
The home did not prevent or properly treat pressure sores.
The home fixed this on April 15, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F686Provide appropriate pressure ulcer care and prevent new ulcers from developing.
Everything on record
307 of the 341 nursing homes in Massachusetts have fewer findings of harm or immediate jeopardy on record than this one.
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.
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 225227.
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.