Whitefish Care and Rehabilitation
Medicare withholds the star rating from every home in its Special Focus Facility program. This rating is not missing. It is withheld.
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.
Medicare attached a note to this home’s staffing figure, numbered 18. Medicare does not publish what its staffing note numbers mean, so we cannot tell you why it is there, only that it is. Treat the hours above, and the gap we work out from them, with that in mind.
What inspectors found
Inspectors visit every nursing home and write up what they find. This home has 77 findings on record going back to 2023, 40 of them after someone filed a complaint.
The 6 serious findings here
Bladder and bowel care
A resident did not get proper help with continence care.
The home fixed this on April 13, 2026.
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.
Nutrition
A resident did not get enough food or fluids to stay healthy.
The home fixed this on December 15, 2025.
This home is challenging this finding through Medicare’s informal dispute resolution process. The finding stands on the record unless that challenge succeeds.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F692Provide enough food/fluids to maintain a resident's health.
Staff lacked skills
The home did not make sure its nurses and aides had the skills needed to care for its residents.
The home fixed this on November 15, 2025.
This home is challenging this finding through Medicare’s informal dispute resolution process. The finding stands on the record unless that challenge succeeds.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F726Ensure that nurses and nurse aides have the appropriate competencies to care for every resident in a way that maximizes each resident's well being.
CPR rules not met
The home did not provide basic life support, including CPR, before emergency responders arrived, where the resident’s own doctor’s orders and advance directives called for it.
The home fixed this on February 17, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F678Provide basic life support, including CPR, prior to the arrival of emergency medical personnel, subject to physician orders and the resident’s advance directives.
Breathing care missed
The home did not give a resident safe and proper care for their breathing when they needed it.
The home fixed this on February 17, 2025.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F695Provide safe and appropriate respiratory care for a resident when needed.
Bedsores
The home did not prevent or properly treat pressure sores.
The home fixed this on December 18, 2024.
Medicare’s wording
Federal tag F686Provide appropriate pressure ulcer care and prevent new ulcers from developing.
Everything on record
54 of the 61 nursing homes in Montana have fewer findings of harm or immediate jeopardy on record than this one.
Medicare also blocked payment for new admissions at this home for 34 days, starting November 20, 2025.
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 does not currently carry 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 275132.
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.