The reviews for Ridgecrest Health and Rehabilitation present a highly mixed and polarized picture. Many reviewers praise the facility’s physical environment — frequently described as new, attractive, and clean — and they consistently commend the therapy teams (physical and occupational therapy) for being effective, goal-oriented, and instrumental in getting patients home. Several individual staff members and clinicians receive specific praise by name for compassion, skill, and responsiveness. Multiple families and residents report positive outcomes from short-term rehab stays, productive care meetings, strong therapy progress, and helpful insurance or administrative support in certain cases.
Contrasting sharply with those positive reports are numerous and serious complaints about the quality and safety of nursing care. A recurring core theme is chronic understaffing and very high personnel turnover, which appears to drive many downstream problems: unanswered call lights and phones, long response times, missed or delayed medications (including pain meds and in some cases life-saving drugs), neglect (residents left in urine or waste for extended periods), and failure to perform routine monitoring such as taking vital signs. Several reviews allege egregious incidents: vital signs not taken for days, delayed ambulance response after respiratory distress resulting in ICU admission, and untreated bed sores. There are multiple reports of confrontational or rude behavior by staff, aides yelling at residents, and receptionists or administrators acting unprofessionally.
Hygiene, food, and environmental maintenance are another major area of concern. While the facility’s outward appearance and new construction earn compliments, many families describe unhygienic interior conditions: bed pans on the floor, flies on personal items, roaches reported, sticky or dirty floors, rooms not being properly cleaned, missing or soiled sheets, and maintenance problems like peeling floor wax and broken window sills. Dining receives consistent negative feedback — meals often arrive cold, portions are insufficient, ingredients are described as low quality or “mystery meat,” and menus sometimes lack appropriate choices for diabetics. Conversely, some residents experienced decent meals and praised the dining staff; however, inconsistency is a pattern.
Therapy services are one of the clearest bright spots but with notable variability. Many reviewers describe therapists as compassionate, effective, and central to successful rehabilitation. Names such as Lyndsey Pearson and Heather appear in positive contexts. Yet other accounts say therapy was delayed, inadequate, or not provided as expected, with some people feeling discharged too early or with insufficient improvement. This inconsistency often ties back to staffing instability and scheduling confusion.
Communication, management, and administrative practices show mixed results. Some families commend caring administrators and good coordination; others report a stark decline after management changes, removal of veteran recognition displays, and a perceived shift to cost-driven or revenue-first policies. Numerous reviewers reported poor communication with families, difficulty contacting staff (no phones in rooms or turned-off cell phones), refusal or delay in processing refunds, billing disputes, and even alleged HIPAA/privacy violations and improper signing of documents by social workers. Security concerns are also raised, with multiple reports of lost or stolen belongings and missing gowns.
Safety incidents and clinical lapses are scattered but serious: missed medication doses, medication errors or overmedication, lack of specialist involvement, poor response to urgent medical needs, and infection-control worries (reports of C. difficile risk). These are critical red flags in multiple reviews and contribute heavily to the negative sentiment. Several reviews recount traumatic outcomes including hospitalization and, in a few statements, suggestions that neglect contributed to severe harm.
Overall sentiment is highly polarized: some families and residents describe Ridgecrest as an excellent rehab resource with outstanding therapy and compassionate staff, while many others describe it as unsafe, understaffed, and neglectful. The most frequent and actionable themes are staffing instability and response delays, inconsistent quality of nursing care and hygiene, variable therapy delivery, and recurring problems with food and maintenance. For prospective residents and families this suggests: (1) ask specific, recent questions about current staffing levels and turnover; (2) verify how call lights and in-room phones work and typical response times; (3) get a clear written plan for meds, vitals monitoring, and therapy schedule; (4) request policies on infection control, personal property security, and specialist consults; and (5) seek references from recent families with similar clinical needs. Management should prioritize stabilizing staffing, addressing basic hygiene and food service consistency, improving communication and transparency with families, and investigating reported safety incidents and billing/administrative complaints to rebuild trust.
