VERANDA OF PENSACOLA, INC

I highly recommend choosing Veranda for your aging family members. They offer so many activities and amenities for them to do - my dad made a lot of friends as well. He also enjoyed a variety of delicious meals - he still talks about the cookies they make! The nursing staff is first rate, communicates regularly with you about your loved one's health, and I am convinced they saved Dad on a few occasions. Amanda is amazing! Beautiful place with wonderful people!

My parents have been at the Veranda for almost two years prior to the recent passing of my dad. Their time here has been a blessing to us as they have been treated well, giving us peace of mind knowing that they are well cared for. While there is always room for improvement, I have been more that satisfied with the level of care that they have received and with the professionalism and compassionate way the staff have treated my parents. This is a great facility if you want to have your loved ones cared for with little assistance from family. It is even a better facility for collaborative care between yourself and family members that are living at the veranda, as the staff at the Veranda is very willing to work with you to make adjustments to their care. I have very high standards and can only give the Veranda a 4 star revue as I always leave room for improvement. Having said that, being there and seeing the care that my dad received during his final days was nothing short of a 5 star effort. I could see nothing that they could have done better and was very much impressed with the care that my dad and other family members received during this time. Overall, I am very pleased that my parents chose this facility and can’t say enough about the effort, professionalism and compassion that my parents got during this difficult time. The third floor staff, led by Roxanne, was awesome, and will always be in my debt.

The Veranda is an incredibly, beautiful home to many happy, healthy, active, productive, and engaged residents. The social events and gatherings they share are abundant and fabulous fun for the residents that are fortunate to call Veranda home. The kitchen staff and chef are top notch! Meals are five star restaurant quality in presentation and taste! The staff are professional, friendly, helpful, very knowledgeable, caring, and extra attentive to each and every resident. They truly love what they do at Veranda, and it shows!

Sad. That is all I can say about this failing facility. They are known amongst the area professionals as the “Walkie Talkie Facility.” In other words if you can walk and talk, you are welcome, but once you have a hard time with mobility they do everything in their power to get you to leave, while charging you out the whazoo. And the worst part is they lie to the elderly and tell them that they have the special licenses to keep them until they die. Maybe they do, but they make sure you leave once you require any level of physical assistance. They also tout a 3 minute call response time, and yet, it was often 45 minutes. Then they claim the call system broke. Several times my mom had to crawl, yes crawl into the hallway and yell for help. Their call system is also easy to cheat. What I mean by that is that when a resident hits their call bracelet, the call goes to a pager. The problem is that the call can be dismissed from the pager, with no response from the staff. This makes it seem as though the staff is responding very quickly, when in fact they are ignoring the call. I watched it happen numerous times while visiting, and even pointed it out to management. Later when they kept neglecting my mother, and not responding she would eventually give up and try to get up on her own and would immediately fall. They refused to provide the call data claiming HIPPA concerns, and then claimed they don’t even collect it! Which is ridiculous considering you can’t report data (3 minutes response) if you don’t actually collect data. Then because my mother would fall from their neglect (on average once or twice a month), they demanded we hire private sitters for 14 hours a day. This made her total cost of care go to $20,000 per month! And they said if she fell even once in the middle of the night they would require we pay for 24 hour sitters which would have made her cost be around $30,000 a month. Then let’s talk about the food. It is truly disgusting. Maybe it’s fine for the independent living side, but sadly they assisted living side has their food shipped up from the independent side, and re-plated. By the time they get it, it is cold or soggy with grease. My mom had diarrhea every time she ate. Then there is the theft. Clothes and bedding, and even her laundry basket were stolen from her room when she wasn’t in there. Someone literally came in, dumped her clothes from her basket onto the floor of her bedroom and stole the basket! The staff never took the theft seriously. I am guessing more was stolen, but that is what she noticed. They supposedly have hall cameras, and should be able to see who the resident thief is, but just like calls for help, they ignore the residents when they voice concern. I want to be fair and state that SOME of the staff are kind, and genuinely try to do a good job, but they have horrible turnover because management is downright nasty. The good staff is often overworked and forced to work multiple overtime and over night shifts. Multiple times, when my mom was neglected, the ONE person on the whole floor would apologize and tell my mom they were so sorry but no one else showed up for work that evening. There are supposed to to 4-5 people on the floor at all times, and yet there is only one. Even during the day they are often short staffed. And because they choose to line their own pockets, rather than pay a livable wage, the quality of people they often get leave much to be desired, and sometimes are downright nasty to the residents. Plus, they barely have any activities for the assisted living people, and if they do, they make no effort to get them to there. If you love your parent, put them elsewhere . I’m actually glad we moved her. The new place has great food, tons of activities, a call system that can’t be cheated (and they provide the data on request), and she is so much happier.

90 yr old mother-in-law has lived in The Veranda for over a year now & has thoroughly enjoyed her stay. The staff is very friendly & attentive; the meals are very good; her apartment is well-maintained and comfortable and a nice variety of activities is offered. Highly recommend.