Harbor Retirement Associates LLC

My mother has been a resident at HarborChase for 18 months. They have consistently not been able to provide services they advertise providing as part of their care. She’s gone at least a month without her apartment being cleaned, Her bed is frequently not made, it took at least 10 months to get them to fix the thermostat in her room. When it is windy out you can hear the wind whistling through her bathroom vent, and her curtains blowing in because of the poor building construction. They call the med techs “care partners” but they really do little more than pass out meds. They have not established a “ relationship” with her after being a resident for 18 months, That being said, the activity director is Fabulous! the “ beautification specialist” is also fabulous! I get more feedback from them than I do the “care partners.” Good variety of activities, but for the size of community, not much participation.

They're understaffed. My biggest issue is that they don't get back to me. For the past three months, I've been trying to get a medication changed for my loved one. Even all the way up to the Vice President, they have not gotten back to me. They act like if you put a person in a memory care unit, you're not going to take them out, and then they take advantage of that. The nurse is rude and completely ignores my requests. She has ghosted me multiple times. They change staff consistently which makes it hard for the residents to receive consistent care. They have carpet in the main areas, and it smells like pee because people pee on it all the time. They clean it constantly, but the pee smell never leaves. I've talked to them about it, and they refuse to put in different flooring or replace the carpet. The cleaning of my loved one's room is inconsistent. I feel like they don't try hard enough to get him to shower or do activities . The only time either of those things happen is when I'm there and my husband helps me do it. The one good thing is the food. They serve a consistent three meals a day. Perhaps they could add in some snacks, because my loved one gets hungry outside of those meals. Things go missing, which I understand occurs in most homes. But when his glasses were lost, which is important, they didn't seem to care. I feel like they sell you this great place, but after you sign the contact and pay the money, they don't give a crap. During the time we've been there, they've also changed leadership. It has been an unfortunate experience. My loved one has improved with the routine of being there, but they could do a lot better. And my concerns and feedback have gone unaddressed. Imagine speaking to everyone in a company and having them ghost you. That speaks for itself. Communication is not their forte. With activities, I understand that it's hard to get memory care residents to participate, but they shouldn't just give up. If what they're doing isn't working, they should keep trying to find things the residents are able to do and excited to participate in.

I would tell others to shop around; make sure that your loved ones physical and medical needs are going to be met. We just didn't have the best experience. I work in a nursing home, but this was my first personal experience dealing with assisted living. In a nursing home, when someone comes in and is new we assume that they can't do anything for themselves. With this assisted living, it seemed like they assumed that newcomers knew how to do everything for themselves. I don't think that assumption fit a lot of people in there. Like my loved one, he needed more initial support when he first got there.

It's very difficult to find people to help here at HarborChase. When you do, they have to find someone else or you have to go to the front desk and ask them to call someone; and they may or may not come. It just seems like there's no one to do anything. I'll bring my loved one flowers and want to get rid of them after they've died and it's hard finding someone or somewhere to throw them out - things like that. It's a very inconvenient place right now and that's all stemming from their lack of staff. The communication between administration and myself or my family is fine, but I rarely hear from the people who actually work there. Aside from that, the facility is very well decorated. It's pretty and I think that it's an acceptable place. When I've had issues, I've reported them and they've been dealt with.

It was promised that my mother would have a catheter and be kept comfortable after a hip fracture. We visited and not only was my mother found in her own urine, (no catheter), nurses do not have proper equipment to turn a patient with hip fractures. This resulted in my mother having to go to the emergency room.

Our family had an in person tour and it did not really stand out enough to remember everything we saw, but we do remember that it just did not give us the feeling that this was the place for our loved one.

I thought Harborchase of Dr. Phillips was very nice. But it was almost too nice, to the point that my mom would not fit in there. It was also very pricey.

It is nice the residents are able to walk around the community. The meals seem to be the same each time and the food isn't good on taste. They seem to be bringing powdered eggs to my loved one after being told my loved one didn't like them. It is the same options on the menu each day.

I think the value for the cost is overly expensive. The facility is needing some development. There's no pool or outdoor gardens. Everything is just flat and uninspiring. They don't make the residents' beds early on in the day, and the service is inconsistent. I think I was overly optimistic at first and realized that a couple of months in. Some of the staff are great, and some are not. I think their biggest problem is understaffing. And the food is not very good at all. This is an expensive place, so I'm a little disappointed in that. The medical doctor also lacks follow-up and execution. But I think the staff there are friendly and mean to do well, and they seem to do the best they can despite being short-staffed.

I would tell others that the administrative staff was not timely in responding to concerns that we had. They did not respond when she would pull the cord, it could be 20-30 minutes before they would come to check on her. She had been left in her bed sometimes until 1030 in the morning until someone figured out no one had helped her get up. They were also not paying close attention to her taking her medications, until the family started going they were just not taking it seriously. We are still waiting on a refund check from them on the time that she was not there. If your loved one is more independent and needs less assistance, it would probably work out better for them. For the care she needed, it was just not a good fit for us.

Our loved one contract a bad virus while he was at the community, he ended up going to the hospital for about a week, The community then shut down and quarantined after he got sick. It was stressful and they were not very communicative at all, and it was just a bad experience.

This was pre-covid. While my mother was here, the process of getting her accepted into the facility went very well. They were on top of it right after we called them, they were very helpful and responsive with the transition. It was clean, they had activities, and it seems they had enough help. The downside was it was difficult to communicate with the nurse and coordinating doctors visits with her as well as coordinating paperwork that go along with the doctors visits such as lab results that came back to the facility. After my mother passed away, they never reached out to us, so we were very hurt by that.

I would tell my friends that it isn't a place for someone who is active. This is a community that provides more support for those needing more care. If you have a loved one who is more active there isn't much for overall interaction. The room my loved one is in is an efficiency room. The cleaning has been wonderful. The window is bright. Everything has been a la cart and my loved one does their own laundry. You can pay for this service if you would like. The food is prepared, and bland due to dietary restrictions, according to my loved one, due to other residents. I have eaten the food and I've never had any complaints. This community in my opinion has done a great job in managing the global pandemic. We haven't been able to see my loved one due to the restricted visiting hours during the day. However we appreciate this to keep the residents safe.

The memory unit is having issues. Residents are not being checked regularly, laundry is not being done, staff needs to improve. Management does not seem to respond to concerns that are brought to their attention. More staff and better training are necessary.

Things are not running the way they were in the past. There has been a turnover in staff leading to problems. The cove area has one washer and dryer for the whole unit (30 residents) and we have had constant assurances that more will be installed but nothing happens. The ratio of caregivers to residents is not met and especially affects the residents during meals. The building is visually lovely but it does not reflect the quality of the facility.

I chose Sabal because the administrator reassured me that he would be in excellent hands. She had run her own memory care facility on a smaller scale. I was told that there was 1 aide for every 3 people. The other facilities that I had looked at, the ratio was 9 to 1. My husband was admitted the next day! I had to travel to NY for medical reasons and my husband was too sick to travel. He hadn’t;t showered for me in 9 days, so I was reassured that he would be cleaned up. When Ireturned 4 days later, my husband had 3 pairs of pants on, 3 golf shirts and 2 sweaters! He was unshaven and had never showered and his teeth wee not brushed!! The toilet was dirty. I think that the aids looked in on him and saw that he was sleeping anddidn’t Want to bother him. With the toilet dirty, Idon’t think any staff had come in, they would have wiped the urine off the rim!

I thought it was pricey for what they offered. They showed us a model room that was nice but the guest room they showed us stank. It was dark and gray. They had activities going on but, for the price and the distance, it just wasn't going to work out for us.

When our loved one first moved there it was great, and then it went downhill. The people were really friendly at first, and by the time we left, I was not at all pleased with them. The director of sales was fantastic throughout. She was phenomenal. She bent over backwards to help get my loved one there and get the cost into the range our budget would allow. She had good communication overall. It was a good place for what we needed for my loved one. I was lucky that I had gotten to visit about 1.5 years ago, before Covid. So I had walked through then and was very pleased with it. I know they're going through a lot because of Covid, but it's hard to know what is due to Covid and what's just normal for them. There was a huge lack of communication, and especially because we weren't able to go inside due to Covid, we felt that communication was even more essential. It was very scary now knowing what was going on with my loved one. The executive director was absolutely awful, extremely rude, very unprofessional, not friendly, and not helpful. When I reached out to her with concerns about my loved one and tried to pinpoint some things and get some information, she would brush me off and not call me back. I would email so there was a record of the communication, and she would say she never got the emails. People I copied on the emails said they did get them. I definitely didn't feel comfortable having my loved one there, especially toward the end of her residency there.

Care services and activities are not specifically tailored for my husband needs. It seems that activities for residents with other necessities are fair

No facility is perfect. My mother was in a nursing home, which was ranked #1 in her area. It was abysmal. She was strapped to a chair and put in the hall. My sister lived close so she went weekdays and I went weekends. She had needs that we could not address ourselves. My husband is a resident in Harbor Chase. My family and I could no longer handle his behavior and it became apparent that he would be injured or worse. I chose Harbor Chase and the staff has been wonderful to me and most of them to him. Had one bad incident. I was told clothes would be washed separately, but found that difficult to believe because he sometimes has things on I never saw before and some of his are gone. I would recommend Harbor Chase to others because I believe the care is the best it is going to be. They are taking care of his needs. I know I should be there everyday, but that is impossible. I am not happy with activity director, but my husband can no longer participate in activities. The price increase every year is a huge issue for me, but I don't know the answers for this horrible situation. I no longer live in Florida and the staff has been so understanding of my situation. They keep me well informed.