Brookdale Senior Living

With my father having dementia, he cannot even afford to get the help or care that he needs while living here. Unless you are very wealthy, I don't recommend this facility. You can find equal or better care at more reasonable prices from other living facilities in or near West Seattle. It seems this company's only concern is making money, regardless of whether or not their residents can afford it. I recommend going on Indeed.com and reading some of the reviews from their own employees. Not only do they mention the high turnover rate and focus on making money, but they bring to light that they are understaffed when it comes to actually helping the residents.

My father has lived at this location for over 5 1/2 years and unfortunately the quality of the staff has gone down tremendously. No one seems to know what they're doing anymore since the majority of the staff quit a few months ago. You would think when someone pays $4,000+ per month for independent living, they would follow through with the agreement to drive him to his doctor's appointment once a week seeing that it's only 5 minutes away! My father has dementia and can no longer drive and I just had spinal surgery, so I'm currently unable to take him. I will be looking for another place for him to live. I do not recommend anyone moving into this living facility.

Within one month of moving in, the recently hired Executive Director quit. Now, we are being charged a full community fee. They do not have enough staff to handle the care adequately. They only offer fruit in the mornings and vegetables at lunch. My mother had lost 11 pounds since moving in. The food is horrible and the regular alternative she is offered is grilled cheese. They do not provide vegetables at night. To say that I’m disappointed is an understatement.

After this experience, I started reading reviews about Brookdale and I feel like I dodged a bullet because most of the price increases happen after the resident moves in, not before! Brookdale's usual pattern is to get you to move your loved one into their facility and then the pricing increases start! Be sure to read all the reviews on this site and others, you'll see the pattern too. Brookdale is all about the money, don't be fooled! They know that once you move your loved one into their facility and pay all those initial fees, it's too expensive to move out so everyone just endures and pays the added fees. DON'T DO IT! There are plenty of other facilities that will be honest and straightforward about their pricing! Very disappointed with Brookdale and their pricing games!

I would think that a director of a memory care facility would know what’s going on in her building and if she doesn’t know anything I would think the RN would. I’m sure they are both hoping this just gets swept under the rug. Again I say this was just one of the concerns. It was by far the most serious. I am encouraging anyone looking into the facility as a home for your loved one to be very very careful.

This year's notice for the 2022 increase was particularly painful! The staff proved to be not so caring and unreliable. After a fall where my mother-in-law fractured her forearm, she couldn't get staff to come to her room and called us at home two counties away to come help! When she needed their bus to take her for her first follow-up appointment (which was very important as they were to determine at this point if she may need surgery...and we double checked that they had her on their bus schedule for the appropriate day) they DID NOT take her for her appointment!! The doctor's office called and asked why we didn't bring her...shock is not the word to describe how this made us feel. When we asked Brookdale why this happened even after we called them and reminded them of her appointment they said, "The driver forgot..."

For many months after she began residency there, we had to call every single month to straighten out her prescription invoice. It was rarely correct. Such a hassle. To the day we moved her out of this facility, we could not get them to consistently send us an accurate Monthly Resident Form (which we supplied them with) for us to use to file her long term care insurance...the form is one page, front only, with only four questions that require check marks in the boxes, basically.

The last month there it took four attempts back and forth to get it completely filled out and even then they had scratched through the date next to the signature because they put the wrong month. The staff member who kept making these errors seemed unhappy to keep hearing from me about this form. And unapologetic. Believe me, it is no treat for me to have to keep following up on the same problem over and over again. But, the insurance company requires complete accuracy and Brookdale was consistently unable to deliver. These were not the only grievances that we had with Brookdale over those two years, but this review is getting long...

When we informed Brookdale (finally) that we were moving her out, of course they wanted to know why. To be polite, we just cited finances...because the rates had gone up so much since we moved her in there. To which the director replied..."Would you consider letting me see what I can do? I really hate to see Ms. ** move out. She does so well at Brookdale." Well, this is anything but the truth. Later, we found out from a former Brookdale employee that they don't keep the rates the same for every resident. Apparently, they work on a sliding fee scale. They overcharge paying folks like us and use that to offset the costs of those who need Brookdale to "see what they can do" about lower pricing for them. We feel cheated and mistreated. Can't believe we stayed so long. Ms. ** is in a far nicer facility now...and it costs less! We would not recommend.

When we asked about other options for care, none were provided. When I explained that it felt like they were forcing us to move my father, I was rudely told “well he COULD stay if you got a companion.” They had been told countless times before this wasn’t an option not that family members could stay with him 24/7. When I asked about a refund for the remaining time he would not be in the facility, I was informed “this isn’t us not providing care” when it very much is them not providing any other options. Again, my father was there for what will total 6 days and they were not willing to ACTUALLY do the work to help him acclimate or refund the amount for the other 3 weeks. I have already reached out to corporate regarding the request but who knows how long that will take.