Des Moines Senior AdvisorWhere can I check whether a Des Moines assisted living program is certified?
In DIAL's Health Facilities database at dia-hfd.iowa.gov, whose public Entity Report lists every certified program and licensed facility by type and county with its certificate number, dates, maximum occupancy and administrator.
Our directory is built from that same report, so the certificate number on each facility page should match DIAL's. If a building advertises assisted living but does not appear on DIAL's list under any name, ask why before going further; Iowa Code 231C.3 forbids holding out as an assisted living program without certification. Iowa's open-data portal also carries an older copy of the assisted living list, but DIAL's database is the current source.
How do I find out when DIAL last visited a program?
DIAL's Survey Due Report shows, for each program, how many months have passed since the last on-site survey or monitoring and when the next is due; our facility pages translate that into an approximate month.
The individual survey and complaint reports can be looked up in the same database by entity. The program also must make its latest monitoring report, fire safety report and food establishment inspection available to the public on request (481 IAC 69.2). Read the plan of correction alongside the report; it shows what the program promised to fix and by when.
How can I see whether Iowa fined a facility?
DIAL's Assessed Fines Report lists state fines by facility with the visit exit date, an enforcement number and the amounts issued, adjusted, suspended, paid and owed; our facility pages reproduce every fine from January 2023 on.
From January 2023 to November 2026, DIAL's Assessed Fines Report lists 27 state fines against 20 of the metro's 79 assisted living programs, and 150 against 46 of its 52 nursing facilities. Iowa cuts a civil penalty by 35 percent when the facility waives its right to contest and pays within 30 days, which is why adjusted amounts are often lower. For nursing facilities, a state fine is often suspended when CMS imposes a federal penalty for the same findings. The report does not say what went wrong; for that, read the survey or complaint report itself.
Where do I find nursing home inspections and ratings for Des Moines?
On CMS's Care Compare, which publishes star ratings, inspection dates and deficiencies, staffing hours, turnover and federal fines for every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing facility; DIAL surveyors do those inspections on CMS's behalf.
its roster lists 52 licensed nursing facilities in the six metro counties with 3,594 beds, and CMS rates 51 of them, 21 at four or five stars overall (Care Compare data as of October 1, 2026). Each nursing home page on this site repeats the CMS figures with CMS's data date and adds Iowa's own state fines. CMS's full inspection reports, the statements of deficiencies, are linked from Care Compare and must also be posted in the facility.
What does the record not tell me about an Iowa facility?
It does not tell you prices, how many staff are on a given shift, which aides would actually care for your parent, or how the program handles the specific situations your family worries about; for those you have to ask and visit.
Neither DIAL nor CMS rates assisted living, so a program with a clean record is not necessarily a better fit than one with a single fine. Use the record to choose which buildings to visit and which questions to ask, then visit at a mealtime and again in the evening.
Side by side
| The public record shows | The public record does not show | |
|---|---|---|
| Credentials | Certificate or license number, type, term and capacity | Prices or available apartments |
| Oversight | When DIAL last visited and when the next visit is due | Day-to-day staffing on each shift |
| Enforcement | State fines since 2023 and CMS fines for nursing homes | Findings that ended with a plan of correction |
| Quality | CMS stars for nursing homes | Any rating for assisted living |
Drawn from Iowa Code chapter 231C, 481 IAC chapters 67 and 69, Iowa HHS and DIAL publications, CareScout, CMS, the VA and the aging agencies cited in the text; our editorial standards explain how we check them.
