Licensing and Certification Section

The purpose of licensing and certification of long term care facilities is to ensure that those facilities provide a high quality of care and quality of life to their residents. The Licensing and Certification Section is responsible for:

• Licensing long term care facilities to operate in Delaware
• Certifying nursing homes for Medicare and/or Medicaid in Delaware
• Determining and monitoring compliance with State and Federal long term care regulations and standards
• Conducting annual surveys and surprise inspections, including night and weekend visits
• Responding to complaints and incidents regarding quality of care, quality of life, and/or violations of resident's rights and
• Operating and maintaining the Delaware Nurse Aide Registry.

Facility Inspections

The Division of Health Care Quality issues a survey report to each long term care facility at the conclusion of the Division’s annual and/or complaint/incident surveys of the facility.  For annual (and some complaint/incident) inspections, nursing homes that are certified to receive Medicare and/or Medicaid are issued two reports, one for the Federal survey and one for the State survey.  Facilities that only have a State license receive just the State survey report.  For a copy of a survey report, please contact the Division’s New Castle County office.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a website that gives detailed information about the past performance of every nursing home that is certified to receive Medicare and/or Medicaid.  The website, called Nursing Home Compare, is https://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare/search.html?.

Report Abuse in a Facility

To Report an incident of abuse, neglect, mistreatment, financial exploitation or have a complaint about patient/client rights, quality of care, staffing, HIPPA concerns, or security concerns, etc. please use the DHCQ Incident Reporting System. Not sure if you should report contact us anyway. We will take care of the rest.
Report Online
If you have difficulty with reporting online you can call Long Term Care (LTC) at 877-453-0012

Glossary of Terms