4410 Gulf Breeze Pkwy, Gulf Breeze, FL 32563, United States
I have to find a place for Mom. I spoke to Danielle Mitchell today. She gave me a virtual tour, was very informative about the all inclusive facility and memory care program. She told me how they keep the residents engaged and active and I felt like this would be the perfect place to care for my mom. It is clean, airy, and welcoming. Danielle was very personable and friendly and earned my trust. This is definitely the place I would want my mom to be cared for.
Read More ReviewsI have to find a place for Mom. I spoke to Danielle Mitchell today. She gave me a virtual tour, was very informative about the all inclusive facility and memory care program. She told me how they keep the residents engaged and active and I felt like this would be the perfect place to care for my mom. It is clean, airy, and welcoming. Danielle was very personable and friendly and earned my trust. This is definitely the place I would want my mom to be cared for.
The Beacon has gone downhill. It used to be so much nicer. The food is great, my grandmother always praised that. My grandmother was there in memory care. I was there visiting her for over 6 hours and the aid did not come and change her that entire time. They told us that they check on them frequently, but that showed us that they didn’t. We had to ask for them to change her. When my mom got there, she saw my grandma in the community sitting area. She was nearly sliding out of her wheelchair, moaning from the pain. My mom and sister-in-law (who is a hospice nurse in a different state) were appalled when they saw my grandmother like that and demanded that they put her in her room. She was already transitioning at that point, sadly. They are short-staffed and they do not have an RN on staff from 7 pm - 7 am. My grandmother was transitioning and needed medication every hour as she was in excruciating pain. After dealing with her hospice (don’t even get me started on them - Emerald Coast Hospice)…we had her transferred to Gulf Breeze hospital for comfort care. The rooms are okay. My grandmother’s room was clean sometimes, but frequently smelled like urine and there were nasty stains on the floor. Diapers were overflowing out of the trash cans, too. I hear it’s nice for the independent residents, just not memory care. For memory care, I’d find a different place.
Wonderful food, lots of activities, very well maintained BUT if your loved one needs much help, find another facility. After my mom became bed-bound because of a broken leg (fault of staff member), she was virtually ignored. Brief not checked or changed for up to 2 days at a time. Calls to staff ignored and sometimes they would forget to bring her food. They almost never came by to check on her though we would see them go across the hall to another resident's room pretty frequently. Staff often on personal calls when they did come into help. I have heard it was much better in the past. We were really disappointed that they clearly just did not care.
If the Beacon offers any kind of long term rate incentive, be sure to get it in writing. When my mom transferred to the memory care facility here from a facility in central Florida a couple of years ago, she was still high functioning, and the salesperson, Becky, told me that the Executive Director said he would lock in the Memory Care portion of her rate at the initial price for the duration of her stay. However, I did not catch that they did not put that promise in the contract. So, when they recently started jacking up her care rate, I asked about that. The response I received was that, yeah, they used to offer incentives like that, but it's not in her contract. Period. I then asked about getting her into a semi-private room, rather than a private room, to save some money in the short term and to prepare for a couple of years from now when this will become necessary due to Medicaid requirements anyway. Becky, who is still there, said she would look into that for me, as they had one of those rooms available, but I've yet to hear anything back from her two months later. Unfortunately, the quality of her care also appears to be declining even as they are charging more. On a recent visit to take her out, I noticed she wasn't wearing socks with her shoes. When I removed her shoes to put on some socks, her feet were filthy and smelled terrible. I mentioned this to the nurse, and she said the staff were helping her wash twice per week. There's definitely no way that was true for her feet. Lastly, the Beacon, as well as the facility where she lived previously, used to allow family to freely come and go with just a code to get in and out of memory care. The Beacon has recently changed the procedure so that you now have to find a staff member to let you in and then again to let you back out. This can be very inconvenient, and makes visiting my mom a much more frustrating experience.
The staff is terrific so warm and inviting. If you get a chance to meet the new Director she is awesome. She has done a great job at bringing the staff together and boosting them up over this holiday season.The activities ladies are also amazing they are always doing something fun for the residents. Oh and the food is delicious also!
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