Symphony Linden — Local services in Linden

I want to start off by thanking all the staff who devote their time and passion to care for my mother day in and day out. I have the upmost respect and gratitude to all these employees. It’s been a rough road through covid but I am seeing light again. This review is also only based off my own personal experience. I have been a POA and advocate for my mother since 2016. She has lived in 3 others facilities prior to here, we tried independent living with home care multiple times which ultimately lead us to understand our mother is unsafe without 24/7 care. I give Symphony of Linden a 5 star because they have earned it and deserve. Nothing in life is perfect but when it comes to a facility this big and with this many people, they do a dang good job with what they are given. It’s really the employees that make this place what it is. I’ve gotten to know some of them very well over the years. Our mother has a beautiful private room,. It’s ALWAYS clean. The food is decent, everything is prepared on site. The residents are very active. The activities are great. The property is in a great location to walk downtown linden with your loved one on a nice day or enjoy a walk around the building. They Do a great job decorating for all the holidays inside and out. They also have laundry on site. Her clothes are well taken care of and the staff does a nice job dressing the residents with what the family provides. Our mother always looks nice and that makes us feel good knowing she is changed morning and evening in nice outfits we provide. I have developed trust, I feel it goes both ways. I hope the staff knows I’m on their team and I’m there to help anyway I can when it comes to my loved one. I believe when it comes to placing your loved one in a home, it’s important to be involved. If your expectation are not being met, sit down with the admin and director of nursing and come up with a plan. Give them the opportunity to fix what is bothering you. I’ve had many hard conversations. Things don’t always happen overnight but I will say, voicing your feelings and opinions and watching the change happen is a feeling of peace. I will say, Being involved definitely makes a big difference. We are pleased to be apart of the family and look forward to many years here. Shout out to the CNAs Josh, Quinn, and Kari. Browyn, activities. Shannon. Kari, ot/pt manager and Becky. These employees have helped make our mothers stay the best it can be, they go out of their way to answer my questions and help resolve any...

Do NOT place your loved one here if you truly care about them. Money IS the priority when it comes to care here and legit, half the reviews are from employees and employee families FYI! (Voelker is the sales lady's last name and Skylar is from Brighton Caretel - so think about the integrity of this place when deciding where to place your loved one). This place is all about "let's hire bodies" (as I have heard management say this first hand) versus quality employees. I have seen on many of occasions staff spending more time on their phones than with "guests" as they call it, as the guests or residents are just there to bring in thousands of dollars so Symphony can thrive and the CEO, Mike can flourish in his giant Florida home. The employees on top of the guests are also undermined and treated like garbage. PTO - which let me educate you, means PAID TIME OFF, and is also Earned time, is really a time where you cannot "check out" and get away at Symphony/Caretel. PTO to them means YOU the employee are still working, which gives the employee no time to rest and recover so that they can come back and care for your loved one. Symphony also still lives in a time of CoViD, where each employee is expected to produce the work of 5 men/women. And let me tell you, that type of work has never produced quality work. This building has also been under investigation by the state many of times. In FACT, when state is in the building, leadership has a printed out guideline form for all directors and supervisors to utilize, that lays out a plan the moment state is spotted in the building they're to run to the nursing halls to manage and cover up any potential egregious citation level issues and to pamper and coach residents to reduce the amount of complaints and concerns those residents might transfer to the attending state inspector. This plan includes a detailed time rotation for managers to stalk and pace assigned areas to ensure all citation level complications and concerns are immediately snuffed out or covered up. So if you care about your loved one, I urge you to not bring them to any Caretel or any Symphony owned establishments. Take it from someone who is heavily within the clinical field and knows the true values of patient advocacy. Any place of business that treats their employees like disposable garbage, is going to treat their customers so much worse. Employees should be valued, if you see holes in their game, you work with with them, you don't dictate them. Avoid any and all Symphony...

My dad was at Symphony for 5 months before he passed. The aids and med techs cared about him and he said he received good care. The facility is nice and kept clean. That’s the extent of the good aspects at Symphony. The food was awful. Most meals my dad took one bite and said it was terrible. Many of my dad’s belongings went missing at Symphony including bedding, clothes, dishes, and even TP we brought. I was constantly tracking things down with no avail. Even after I put his name on everything- items routinely disappeared. My dad suffered from UTI’s and low BP and neither ailments were managed well. There is only one PA for the entire facility M-F 9 to 5 and she cared but couldn’t provide adequate care. My dad had 5 trips to the ER between February and April and 4 of those ER visits could have been avoided with some monitoring by the PA. The last week my dad was there he was in hospice care. The AL director made the week a living hell. My dad was a huge fall risk and hospice ordered bed rails. They are usually not allowed by the state but in hospice they can be used with family consent. The rails were delivered twice, our family consented and the rails were never located. My dad fell, broke his nose and the night aid left him naked, on the floor with his folly bag next to him and a pillow under his head. The day aid called me crying in the morning to let me know what happened. I stayed with my dad after that on a mattress in his room. The pharmacy that Symphony uses is in Illinois and meds were often delayed. My dad went 24 hours with no pain meds whatsoever with a hip fracture and in the active stage of dying. The hospice nurse and I went to Walgreens to fill scripts ourselves. The pharmacy never did deliver morphine in pre-filled syringes so hospice had to express ship them from another pharmacy. Now that my dad has passed, I can’t get anyone to resolve two remaining financial issues (rent to be refunded and reimbursement for a wheelchair they lost) despite numerous emails to Bowe (the overall manager) billing and even the owner of Symphony. I gave 2 stars because the aids were great for the most part but management is not...