South Dakota Assisted Living Regulations and Records

When choosing an assisted living community, it is important to understand South Dakota 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 South Dakota assisted living records: Basic

Public access to assisted living records and reports for the state of South Dakota is basic. Key findings that informed this rating include:

• South Dakota provides an online PDF that lists licensed assisted living communities.
• Information about inspections, violations or complaints may be obtained by filling out an FOIA and mailing your request to the state. Survey reports for nursing homes are available online in South Dakota.

How to look up South Dakota assisted living licenses and records

• South Dakotans should contact the Department of Health for basic information.
• Contact the office of your local long-term care ombudsman to see if he or she can provide information about a community you are exploring.
• Visit the US Administration on Aging’s Eldercare Locator to locate the appropriate long-term-care ombudsman.
• If you need to make a Freedom of Information Act request to get records, consider browsing these state by state resources from the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

How we arrived at our South Dakota 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? Yes
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 or N/A
7. If Yes to #4 and No to #6, are violations / inspections searchable at all? Yes
8. Is information about special licensing for care shown? Yes
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? No
13. Frequency of inspections? Every 12 months
14. Website includes pricing of facility? No