Cottonwood Canyon Healthcare Center — El Cajon, CA
This page sets out what the federal inspection record says about Cottonwood Canyon Healthcare Center, a 96-bed nursing home at 1391 Madison Avenue, El Cajon, 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) | 055064 |
| Legal business name | Koa Holdings LLC |
| Listed chain or group | Pacs Group |
| Address | 1391 Madison Avenue, El Cajon, CA 92021 |
| Phone listed with CMS | (619) 444-1107 |
| Ownership type | For profit – Corporation |
| Certified beds | 96 |
| Average residents per day | 90.1 |
| Certified since | January 1, 1967 |
| Overall CMS rating | 3 out of 5 |
| Health inspection rating | 2 out of 5 |
| Staffing rating | 2 out of 5 |
| Quality measures rating | 5 out of 5 |
| Total nursing staff turnover | 40.4% |
| Most recent standard inspection | December 12, 2024 |
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.
Federal penalties
CMS’s penalty file lists 1 federal penalty against this facility: 1 fine totalling $9,110. A denial of payment means CMS stopped paying the home for residents admitted after a set date until the problem was fixed.
Inspectors have cited this home 33 times since January 2024
1 of those was at severity level G or above — what CMS calls actual harm. 18 came from complaints rather than routine inspections. Every one of them is listed below, with its date and what the rule required.
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Inspection citations since January 2024
CMS records 33 health citations at this facility from inspections between February 29, 2024 and April 15, 2026.
| Inspected | Tag | What the rule requires | Scope and severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 15, 2026 | F0689 | Ensure that a nursing home area is free from accident hazards and provides adequate supervision to prevent accidents. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date May 7, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0689 | Ensure that a nursing home area is free from accident hazards and provides adequate supervision to prevent accidents. (complaint) | G — Isolated, Actual harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0726 | Ensure that nurses and nurse aides have the appropriate competencies to care for every resident in a way that maximizes each resident’s well being. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0678 | Provide basic life support, including CPR, prior to the arrival of emergency medical personnel , subject to physician orders and the resident’s advance directives. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0656 | Develop and implement a complete care plan that meets all the resident’s needs, with timetables and actions that can be measured. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0641 | Ensure each resident receives an accurate assessment. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | F0842 | Safeguard resident-identifiable information and/or maintain medical records on each resident that are in accordance with accepted professional standards. (complaint) | D — Isolated, Potential for more than minimal harm | Correction date Mar 13, 2026 |
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 26 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. Cottonwood Canyon Healthcare 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.
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