A step-by-step guide to checking a Charlotte-area Adult Care Home, Family Care Home, or nursing home's license and inspection history before you sign anything.
By Charlotte Senior Advisor Care Team — Licensing & Memory Care Team · May 5, 2026
One of the more family-friendly features of North Carolina's system is that you don't have to figure out which agency to check. All residential senior care — Adult Care Homes (10A NCAC 13F), Family Care Homes (10A NCAC 13G), and nursing homes (10A NCAC 13D) — is licensed by the single NC Division of Health Service Regulation (DHSR), and one DHSR facility search covers all three. For nursing homes, you can also cross-reference Medicare's Care Compare for CMS quality ratings. If a community offers a 'continuum' campus with independent living, an adult care home, and a nursing wing on one property, each licensed piece will show up in the DHSR system — ask the administrator to specify exactly which license and rule chapter applies to the specific unit or wing your family member would live in.
Search using the exact legal name of the provider (which can differ slightly from the marketing name on the sign out front) and the street address, since some operators run multiple locations under similar names across Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Gaston, Union, and Iredell counties. If you're touring a memory-care unit, confirm the community carries a Special Care Unit (SCU) designation, which is what distinguishes a genuine dementia-care setting from a general adult care home.
Look at the most recent survey or inspection date, any cited deficiencies, and whether a plan of correction was filed and accepted. A single old, resolved citation is common and not necessarily a red flag; a pattern of repeat citations in the same category (medication management, staffing, resident rights) over multiple inspection cycles is worth asking the administrator about directly. Also check whether the facility currently holds a provisional license or has any pending enforcement action — all of which should show up in the public DHSR record. North Carolina also publishes a star-rating system for adult care homes and nursing homes that can give a quick at-a-glance sense of a community's compliance history.
Bring your questions to the tour: ask the administrator to walk through the most recent inspection findings with you, and compare their explanation against what the public record actually shows. The Centralina Area Agency on Aging, the NC State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, and your county Department of Social Services can also help a family interpret a DHSR record if the terminology is unfamiliar — this is a free service, not something families need to pay a placement agency to do.
Free, online, and no pressure — we answer to families here, not to facilities.