SurveyGuard and 6 Alternatives: Survey Readiness Tools for Assisted Living Operators

ExpiryEdge is our first pick for a single assisted living community, or two, whose survey findings tend to be paper that lapsed. It holds the facility licence, fire inspection, each caregiver's CPR and TB, each service plan review and each correction deadline as a dated record, reminds the owner by text or email, and escalates to the administrator when nobody acts, for $29 to $199 a month.

If you run skilled nursing beds, want CMS-style mock surveys and AI-drafted plans of correction, or need a regional view across many homes, pick SurveyGuard, or add it alongside. It also tracks audits and grievances across skilled nursing through assisted and independent living. The rest suit narrower jobs. GoAudits runs mock surveys and rounds on a phone at a published price. Collain's 2567 RapidRespond drafts plans of correction for nursing homes. HealthStream Quality Manager is built for skilled nursing, MedTrainer adds policies and training, and PointClickCare keeps state forms inside the EHR.

We make ExpiryEdge, and we've put it first below. SurveyGuard and the others are described from their own sites and product pages as of 7 November 2026, and every claim links to its source.

How we compared these tools

Many survey findings are lapsed paper, so most of our columns ask how a tool keeps that paper in date: who gets reminded, whether licences, staff files and building certificates sit in one place, whether overdue items escalate and whether drills run on a schedule. One column covers CMS-style mock surveys and plan of correction drafting, which skilled nursing operators need. Where a vendor's pages don't say, the table says "Not stated". On 7 November 2026 we read each vendor's own product and pricing pages, and checked the inspection and correction timelines in Washington's RCW, eCFR and the CMS-2567 instructions. We didn't buy paid trials of these platforms. ExpiryEdge is our product, which is worth remembering when you read its section.

Ten days to answer a 2567, and the year that decides it

Assisted living is licensed by the state, and the state sets the inspection clock. In Washington, RCW 18.20.110 says the department must inspect every assisted living facility at least every 18 months, with an annual average of 15. It can stretch that to 24 months after three clean inspections, and it can turn up unannounced at any time.

Nursing homes run on a federal clock. Under 42 CFR 488.308, each facility gets a standard survey within 15 months, and the statewide average must be 12 months or less. After the survey, the instructions on Form CMS-2567 say the plan of correction goes back to the survey agency within 10 days of receipt. State assisted living agencies set their own deadline, so check yours.

Ten days is short. Most of it goes on finding evidence that already existed and proving a fix. That's why readiness is a year-round job. Surveyors read staff files, training records, resident service plans, drill logs, policies and maintenance certificates, and every one of them has a date that can lapse quietly. Our assisted living state survey checklist lists what they usually ask for.

1. ExpiryEdge: best for keeping survey evidence in date

With ExpiryEdge, the surveyor doesn't find an expired CPR card, a missing TB result or a policy two years past review, because each one was chased before it lapsed. Your administrator stops spending the week before a survey hunting through binders.

Each item is a record with an owner and a date: the facility licence, the fire inspection, each staff member's CPR and TB, each resident's service plan review, each policy's review date. Reminders go out on steps you set, say 60, 30 and 7 days, by email, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack or Teams, and if the owner doesn't act, the item escalates to the administrator. When a survey ends, you add each correction as a record due inside your plan's deadline, owned by the person fixing it. A pharmacy, fire alarm contractor or hospice partner can upload a renewed certificate through a no-login link.

Recurring SOP checklists cover the routine evidence: a monthly fire drill, a weekly walk-round, a quarterly mock survey you write yourself. Every action lands in an audit log you can export for the surveyor. See the full setup on our assisted living page and our SOP checklist software.

Try it with your own survey evidence in 15 minutes:

1. Add your facility licence, fire inspection and three staff files as records, uploading each document so the expiry date is read for you.
2. Enter each open finding from your last survey as a record due before your correction deadline, owned by the person fixing it, with escalation to the administrator.
3. Build a monthly fire drill checklist and schedule it to run on the first Monday.

Pricing: from $29 a month (Personal) to $199 (Power), set by how many dated items you hold, with a 14-day free trial and no card. Compare what each plan holds on the pricing page.

Good to know: you write the checklists from your own state rules, so they fit how your state surveys you. If you also want CMS-style mock surveys, ExpiryEdge runs happily beside SurveyGuard or GoAudits.

2. SurveyGuard: best all-round survey readiness platform

SurveyGuard calls itself an AI compliance platform for post-acute operators, from skilled nursing to assisted and independent living. Its site lists mock surveys that simulate the CMS process, including F, K and L tags, and SmartPOC, which drafts plans of correction from citations.

QAPIGuard logs QAPI plans, meetings and facility assessments. AuditGuard tracks audits such as infection control and wounds, and CareGuard Rounds captures resident concerns as grievances. A survey dashboard acts as a digital binder for past surveys and open actions, with a regional view across sites. It integrates with PointClickCare and MatrixCare.

Pricing: not published. The site lists Single Facility, Regional (2 to 10 facilities) and Enterprise tiers with early adopter rates set in a sales conversation.

Watch out for: much of the toolkit follows CMS tags and pathways. A standalone assisted living community surveyed under state rules should ask how the mock survey adapts to its state.

3. GoAudits: best published price for mock surveys and rounds

GoAudits is a mobile audit app. Its nursing care page lists ready-made checklists, including a QAPI self-assessment and an infection control inspection, and names mock surveys as a use case. For assisted living, you can give each care level its own checklists for state rules.

Audits repeat daily, weekly or monthly, assigned to a person for a unit and shift. Findings become actions with owners and due dates, overdue actions escalate, and fixes carry photo proof. Reports export to PDF for surveyors.

Pricing: the pricing page lists Starter at $10 and Enterprise at $30 per user a month, billed annually, after a 14-day free trial with no credit card. Scheduling and notifications sit in Enterprise.

Watch out for: GoAudits checks what you can walk around and see. It doesn't track licence or certificate expiry dates.

4. Collain 2567 RapidRespond: best for drafting a plan of correction fast

2567 RapidRespond reads an uploaded CMS-2567, pulls out every F-tag citation and drafts a facility-specific plan of correction in about a minute per citation. It checks each draft against CMS acceptance criteria, builds audit checklists for each citation, and pulls three years of citation history to flag repeat tags. Collain says it serves assisted living and memory care providers as well as nursing homes, per its senior living page.

Pricing: not published. The page says there's no implementation and no sales call, but you need a Collain client login and your CMS Certification Number.

Watch out for: it works from an electronically produced CMS-2567. An assisted living citation from a state agency on its own form won't fit.

5. HealthStream Quality Manager: best for skilled nursing QAPI

HealthStream Quality Manager, formerly abaqis, is described on its product page as a quality management system designed for skilled nursing facilities. It runs mock surveys with study guides, guided QAPI workflows, and a PIP Builder for improvement projects, with corrective actions tracked centrally.

Pricing: not published; book a demo.

Watch out for: the page doesn't mention assisted living. It suits a campus with a skilled nursing wing more than a standalone assisted living building.

6. MedTrainer: best if training and policies are the weak spot

MedTrainer's long-term care page covers training, credentialing, policy management with AI-suggested edits, and incident reporting for falls, pressure ulcers and infections. It positions all of this as keeping documentation survey-ready.

Pricing: not published. The pricing page promises a custom quote in 24 to 48 hours.

Watch out for: the pages we read don't describe mock surveys or plan of correction tools.

7. PointClickCare: best if your EHR is already the evidence

PointClickCare's state forms article describes more than 125 state-mandated senior living forms, filled from resident data and updated as state licensure and Medicaid sites change. Assessments can trigger service plan items and documentation tasks.

Pricing: not published; the senior living page offers a consultation or demo.

Watch out for: it's an EHR, not a survey tool. Staff files, drills and building certificates need tracking elsewhere.

ExpiryEdge as an alternative to SurveyGuard

We put ExpiryEdge first because a lapsed document is the survey finding a good reminder can stop, and that's the job it does best. Switch to ExpiryEdge if you run one or two assisted living communities surveyed by the state, and your findings tend to be lapsed documents rather than clinical practice. A missing TB result, an expired CPR card or a policy two years past its review date are tracking problems. ExpiryEdge fixes those for $49 a month on the Pro plan's 250 items.

It also reaches people outside the building. A pharmacy, fire alarm contractor or hospice partner can upload a renewed certificate through a no-login link.

Stay with SurveyGuard if you run skilled nursing beds, want CMS-style mock surveys and AI plans of correction, or need a regional view across ten homes. Some operators use both: SurveyGuard for the survey work, ExpiryEdge for the dates and documents around it.

Sort your last two surveys into practice and paper

Pull your last two survey reports and sort every finding into two piles. Practice findings are about how care was delivered. Paper findings are about a record that was missing, late or out of date.

If most findings are practice, buy a mock survey tool such as SurveyGuard or GoAudits. If most are paper, buy something that tracks dates and chases people, then add audits later. Many communities find the paper pile is bigger than they expected.

Then test with your own evidence. Give each vendor three real items: a staff file, a resident's service plan and your fire inspection report. Ask how each would have been flagged 60 days before it lapsed. Our senior living compliance software guide covers the wider setup, and the staff training software comparison handles in-service hours.