District of Columbia Assisted Living Regulations and Records

When choosing an assisted living community, it is important to understand the District of Columbia state regulations for assisted living facilities and know how to look up assisted living license information. But public access to assisted living records varies greatly by state.

We developed a system to rate each state on how easy – or difficult – it is to find important assisted living records and reports, and compiled tips to help you in your search.

States with the most transparent records allow you to look up important information about each assisted living facility online, including inspections, complaints, survey results, violations, capacity, and whether the facility accepts Medicaid.

Access to District of Columbia assisted living records: Moderate

Public access to assisted living records and reports for the District of Columbia is moderate. Key findings that informed this rating include:

• A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request must be submitted in order to find out the backgrounds of some providers. Other survey reports may be found online.
• The District of Columbia does not have a searchable database of licensed assisted living communities, but they have a PDF that gives information on licensed assisted living communities.

How to look up District of Columbia assisted living licenses and records

• Visit the Health Care Facilities Licensing page to access a PDF listing licenses assisted living facilities in Washington D.C.
• Visit the DC Health Assisted Living Survey Reports page to find survey reports for assisted living facilities. If you cannot find reports for a specific community, contact the D.C. Department of Health directly to find out about the backgrounds of providers.
• If you need to make a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get records, consider browsing these state-by-state resources from the National Freedom of Information Coalition, which included sample state-specific FOIA letters.

How we arrived at our District of Columbia rating

We developed a standard methodology for state data collection and evaluation, and based our rating primarily on the objective, state-specific accessibility criteria outlined in these questions:

1. Are licensed assisted living communities listed online in any form? Yes
2. If Yes to #1, is the information updated frequently? No
3. If Yes to #1, is the list of licensed communities searchable? No
4. Does the state post inspections, complaints, survey results, or violations online? Yes
5. If Yes to #4, is the information updated frequently? [within 90 days] Yes
6. If Yes to #2 and #4, is the enforcement information included in the same place as licensed communities? No
7. If Yes to #4 and No to #6, are violations / inspections searchable at all? Yes or N/A
8. Is information about special licensing for care shown? No or N/A
9. Capacity shown? Yes
10. Payment types shown, [e.g. Medicaid, private pay]? No
11. Administrator / Contact name shown? Yes
12. State may fine facility? Yes
13. Frequency of inspections? Every 12 months
14. Website includes pricing of facility? No