Balboa Nursing & Rehabilitation Center — San Diego, CA

This page sets out what the federal inspection record says about Balboa Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, a 194-bed nursing home at 3520 Fourth Avenue, San Diego, California. Every figure below is copied from data the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes about nursing homes that take Medicare or Medicaid. We have not added our own judgment to it.

The record at a glance

Federal ID (CCN)	056105
Legal business name	Balboa Healthcare, Inc.
Listed chain or group	Pacs Group
Address	3520 Fourth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92103
Phone listed with CMS	(619) 291-5270
Ownership type	For profit – Limited Liability company
Certified beds	194
Average residents per day	181.7
Certified since	October 10, 1969
Overall CMS rating	4 out of 5
Health inspection rating	3 out of 5
Staffing rating	2 out of 5
Quality measures rating	5 out of 5
Total nursing staff turnover	37.2%
Most recent standard inspection	May 15, 2025

CMS scores nursing homes from one to five stars. The health inspection rating is set relative to other nursing homes in the same state, so a one-star home is in the bottom fifth in California, not the bottom fifth nationally. Staffing and quality measure ratings are scored against national thresholds.

Inspectors have cited this home 25 times since January 2024

1 of those was at severity level G or above — what CMS calls actual harm. 19 came from complaints rather than routine inspections. Every one of them is listed below, with its date and what the rule required.

Was somebody in your family at Balboa Nursing & Rehabilitation Center? Tell us what you saw. We will read the whole record for this home — including the parts not shown on this page — and tell you plainly what it says and what your options are. You can write to us here without anyone hearing you.

Inspection citations since January 2024

CMS records 25 health citations at this facility from inspections between June 4, 2024 and April 23, 2026.

Inspected	Tag	What the rule requires	Scope and severity	Status
Apr 23, 2026	F0609	Timely report suspected abuse, neglect, or theft and report the results of the investigation to proper authorities. (complaint)	D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date May 16, 2026
Mar 5, 2026	F0881	Implement a program that monitors antibiotic use. (complaint)	E — Pattern, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date Apr 3, 2026
Mar 5, 2026	F0757	Ensure each resident’s drug regimen must be free from unnecessary drugs. (complaint)	E — Pattern, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date Apr 3, 2026
Jan 27, 2026	F0584	Honor the resident’s right to a safe, clean, comfortable and homelike environment, including but not limited to receiving treatment and supports for daily living safely. (complaint)	E — Pattern, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date Feb 24, 2026
Jan 27, 2026	F0583	Keep residents’ personal and medical records private and confidential. (complaint)	F — Widespread, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date Feb 24, 2026
Dec 12, 2025	F0740	Ensure each resident must receive and the facility must provide necessary behavioral health care and services. (complaint)	D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm	Correction date Jan 9, 2026
Mar 20, 2025	F0740	Ensure each resident must receive and the facility must provide necessary behavioral health care and services. (complaint)	G — Isolated, Actual harm	Correction date Apr 4, 2025

The wording in the third column is CMS’s own plain-language summary of the federal rule that was cited, not a description of what happened. This table shows every one of the 1 citation at actual-harm level or above, plus the 6 most recent of the rest. The other 18 are in the CMS file linked below.

How to read scope and severity

Every citation gets a letter from A to L. The letter carries two things at once: how serious the problem was, and how many residents it reached.

Severity	Isolated	Pattern	Widespread
Immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety	J	K	L
Actual harm	G	H	I
No actual harm, potential for more than minimal harm	D	E	F
No actual harm, potential for minimal harm	A	B	C

“Immediate jeopardy” is CMS’s term for a situation that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment or death. It requires the home to act at once.

What this page does not tell you

• A citation is an inspector’s finding against a federal rule. It is not a court judgment, and the facility may be disputing it. Citations marked “under dispute” above are in CMS’s formal review process.
• Citation counts partly reflect how often a home was inspected and how many complaints were filed about it. A home with more citations has not automatically given worse care than one with fewer.
• Bigger homes have more residents, more staff and more inspections, so they tend to accumulate more citations.
• None of this says anything about the care any one resident received. A home with a clean record can still fail somebody, and a home with a bad record can be caring for your mother well.
• This is a snapshot. CMS updates these files monthly, and the figures here are from the file dated August 1, 2026.

Where this comes from

• Ratings, ownership, beds and penalties: CMS Provider Information dataset (4pq5-n9py), file dated August 1, 2026.
• Citations: CMS Health Deficiencies dataset (r5ix-sfxw), file dated August 1, 2026, filtered to inspections on or after January 1, 2024.
• This facility on the government’s own site: Medicare Care Compare.
• Retrieved August 29, 2026. Our method is set out in Editorial policy and How we count.

For the facility

If anything on this page is wrong, out of date or missing context, we will correct it. Balboa Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and anyone acting for it can reach the watchdog team through our corrections and right of reply page. We publish the response alongside the record.