K921 Citation: What It Means for Your SNF's Electrical Equipment Testing

If your facility's CMS-2567 has ever listed K921, you already know it has to do with electrical equipment. Many administrators don't realize that K921 is the Life Safety Code tag for patient care-related electrical equipment (PCREE) testing. It is where gaps in your PCREE program show up on a survey report.

What K921 Covers

K921 is titled "Electrical Equipment – Testing and Maintenance Requirements." On published survey reports, the tag text says that the physical integrity, resistance, leakage current and touch current tests for fixed and portable PCREE are performed as required in NFPA 99 section 10.3, and that all PCREE used in patient care rooms is tested before being put into service. It also points to NFPA 99 section 10.5, which covers the facility's testing program, manufacturer service information and record keeping.

In plain terms, K921 asks three questions:

• Was the equipment tested? Physical inspection, ground resistance and leakage current, at the interval your program sets.
• Was new or returned equipment tested before use? This includes new purchases, rentals, loaners and devices back from repair.
• Can you prove it? Records that tie each device to a test date, results and the person who did the work.

Why SNFs Get Cited Under K921

Most K921 citations are documentation problems rather than dangerous equipment. The patterns we see most often:

• Testing lapsed. The vendor relationship ended, the maintenance director changed, and nobody scheduled the next round.
• Incomplete inventory. Beds and lifts were tested, but monitors, oxygen concentrators or newer equipment were missed.
• No incoming testing. A rental bed, hospice-supplied equipment or a new purchase went into a resident room with no test record. See testing new, rental and loaner equipment.
• Summary-only reports. The vendor left a one-page "all passed" letter instead of device-level results.
• Failures never closed out. A device failed, but there's no record that it was repaired and re-tested. See post-repair testing requirements.

What Surveyors Ask to See

Expect the Life Safety Code surveyor to ask for your most recent PCREE test records and then spot-check them. A common approach is to pick a bed or lift in a resident room and ask you to find its record. Have these ready in one place:

1. Your current PCREE inventory, with asset ID and location for each device
2. The most recent device-level test report, with measured values
3. Corrective action records for any failures, including re-tests
4. Incoming test records for equipment added since the last full round
5. Your written testing policy or equipment management program, including intervals
6. Technician qualification documentation and the test instrument's calibration record

Not sure what a complete report looks like? See our sample PCREE test report.

Want a quick gut check? Take the 2-minute PCREE readiness self-assessment.

Free tool: Look up any nursing home to see its electrical citations and when its next survey is likely.

If You've Already Been Cited

A K921 deficiency needs a plan of correction that fixes the problem and shows how it won't recur. In practice that means: complete testing of all PCREE (not just the devices the surveyor flagged), document results at the device level, put an incoming-equipment testing step into your receiving process, and assign a named person to track the next due date. Our guide to responding to a PCREE deficiency walks through the plan of correction in more detail.