St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

    321 Centre St, Dorchester, MA, 02122
    3.5 · 70 reviews
    • Assisted living
    • Memory care
    • Skilled nursing
    AnonymousLoved one of resident
    2.0

    Compassionate staff but unsafe care

    My experience was mixed. I found the nurses, aides and rehab team compassionate, attentive and skilled - clean rooms, dignified end-of-life care, smooth insurance handling and excellent PT gave our family comfort. But I also witnessed dangerous lapses: poor communication, unresponsive or understaffed shifts, missed/wrong meds, food and billing problems, abrupt transfers and overall unsafe care - issues serious enough that I can't confidently recommend this facility.

    Pricing

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    Amenities

    Healthcare services

    • Activities of daily living assistance
    • Assistance with bathing
    • Assistance with dressing
    • Assistance with transfers
    • Medication management
    • Mental wellness program

    Healthcare staffing

    • 12-16 hour nursing
    • 24-hour call system
    • 24-hour supervision

    Meals and dining

    • Diabetes diet
    • Meal preparation and service
    • Restaurant-style dining
    • Special dietary restrictions

    Room

    • Air-conditioning
    • Cable
    • Fully furnished
    • Housekeeping and linen services
    • Kitchenettes
    • Private bathrooms
    • Telephone
    • Wifi

    Transportation

    • Community operated transportation
    • Transportation arrangement
    • Transportation arrangement (non-medical)

    Common areas

    • Beauty salon
    • Computer center
    • Dining room
    • Fitness room
    • Gaming room
    • Garden
    • Outdoor space
    • Small library
    • Wellness center

    Community services

    • Concierge services
    • Fitness programs
    • Move-in coordination

    Activities

    • Community-sponsored activities
    • Planned day trips
    • Resident-run activities
    • Scheduled daily activities

    3.51 · 70 reviews

    Overall rating

    1. 5
    2. 4
    3. 3
    4. 2
    5. 1
    • Care

      3.2
    • Staff

      3.4
    • Meals

      1.0
    • Amenities

      3.5
    • Value

      1.0

    Pros

    • Compassionate, attentive nursing staff and aides
    • Strong physical therapy and rehabilitation program
    • Supportive, dignified end-of-life and hospice care
    • Clean, comfortable rooms and environment (reported by several reviewers)
    • Fast admission process in some cases (admissions within 48 hours)
    • Helpful, communicative administration and smooth insurance handling (reported by some families)
    • Personalized bedside care and family support (e.g., snacks, AC, overnight bed accommodations)
    • Thoughtful activities and loving, family-like atmosphere
    • Knowledgeable medical staff and physicians praised by families

    Cons

    • Inconsistent staff professionalism and reliability across shifts and services
    • Poor communication and lack of transparency with families and between departments
    • Medication errors and missed or delayed medications
    • Neglect of basic care (missed bathing, feeding, ignored oxygen requests, vitals misreported)
    • Serious safety incidents including falls, rapid declines, hospital transfers, and reports of death after admission
    • Unresponsive reception and difficulty obtaining timely assistance
    • Dining problems: limited/no food choices, unsuitable meals, and outside food charges to resident accounts
    • Billing and paperwork delays, abrupt or poorly coordinated discharges, and case manager issues
    • Nighttime staff noise and unprofessional behavior (yelling at patients)
    • Allegations of abuse, severe neglect, and concerns about review authenticity

    Summary review

    Overall sentiment in the reviews is sharply polarized. A substantial number of reviewers report excellent, compassionate care: attentive nurses and aides, a strong rehabilitation/physical therapy program, and dignified hospice support for residents at the end of life. Those positive reviews highlight personal, family-focused actions (bringing snacks, delivering an AC, setting up an overnight bed), fast admissions, good communication from some administrators, and relief for families during difficult transitions. Several reviewers explicitly recommend the facility as a first choice for skilled nursing or rehab care and single out named physicians and staff for praise.

    Conversely, a significant and worrying subset of reviews describes serious lapses in care and safety. Commonly reported issues include medication errors or missed medications, failures to provide basic care (not bathing, not feeding, ignoring oxygen requests), misreported vitals, dehydration and weight loss, and incidents that required hospital transfer. Several families report abrupt discharges, poor follow-through by case management, billing problems, and a lack of answers when they ask questions. A number of reviews allege extreme mistreatment, neglect, or abuse and connect these incidents to adverse outcomes, including rapid decline and death. These reports raise major safety and quality concerns.

    Staff behavior and consistency are a dominant theme explaining the mixed experiences. Many reviewers describe staff as kind, skilled, and attentive, often noting a family-like atmosphere and staff who know every patient. At the same time, others report unreliable or unprofessional staff, frequent unresponsiveness (including unmanned reception), loud or abusive nighttime behavior, and inadequate staffing levels. This inconsistency appears to vary by shift, department, or individual caregiver and is a likely driver of the polarized experiences described.

    Clinical quality shows a similar split. Rehabilitation and physical therapy are repeatedly praised and appear to be a clear strength for many residents. End-of-life and hospice care also receive several positive mentions for being peaceful and dignified. However, there are equally serious complaints of clinical mismanagement (wrong medications, missed meds, improperly reported vitals, and delays in transferring to higher levels of care) that suggest gaps in medication administration, monitoring, and clinical oversight in some cases.

    Operational and administrative themes are mixed as well. Some families report clear, helpful communication from administration and smooth insurance or billing interactions. Others describe billing errors (including outside food charges), delayed paperwork, poor coordination of discharge planning, and confusion over visitation protocols (exacerbated in some cases by COVID restrictions). The presence of claims about fake 5-star reviews and staff involvement in reviews was raised, which contributes to a credibility concern among some reviewers.

    Dining and amenities receive predominantly negative notices around choice and quality: multiple reviewers state there is little or no food selection and that meals may be unsuitable for certain residents. Positive notes about cleanliness and comfortable rooms appear in several reviews, but they are overshadowed for some families by reports of unsanitary or dangerous conditions in other accounts.

    Patterns and takeaways: the reviews describe a facility capable of delivering excellent rehabilitation, hospice, and compassionate bedside care, but that capability is not consistently realized across all patients, shifts, or services. The most commonly reported risks are inconsistent staffing and communication failures, which in the worst-reported cases have led to medication errors, neglect, and serious harm. Families’ experiences seem to depend heavily on which staff are on duty, the specific unit, and the quality of communication from management.

    For prospective residents and families, these reviews suggest due diligence is important: verify staffing levels, observe interactions across shifts, ask detailed questions about medication administration, feeding, and monitoring protocols, and confirm billing and discharge workflows. The facility has clear strengths to recommend it in many cases, particularly for rehab and compassionate hospice care, but the frequency and severity of negative reports mean prospective residents should closely monitor care and maintain active communication with staff and administration. The reviews collectively portray a facility with significant variability in performance — capable of exemplary care in some instances and serious lapses in others.

    Location

    Map showing location of St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

    About St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

    St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Nursing Center sits in Dorchester, MA, and serves older adults and families from many backgrounds. The center's been in the community for years and does a bit of everything, so folks can get independent living, assisted living, memory care, and home care help, whether that's medical or non-medical. The center also has adult day services, long-term skilled nursing, home health care with Medicare certification, and support for hospice when needed. Joint Commission accredits the facility, and Medicare and Medicaid gave it a five-star rating, which speaks to the level of care, even if no place is perfect.

    The place offers short- and long-term rehabilitation, too, especially for people who need extra help after surgeries or strokes, and the physiatry team works closely with therapy services. Residents get access to doctors for internal medicine, psychiatry, and optometry, among others, and Dr. Marie-Helen Almonor is part of the medical team. Nurses, therapists, social workers, and dietitians work together so each resident's care plan matches their needs, and there's a full assessment when someone moves in. The center employs OTAGO certified therapists for fall prevention programs, and they handle wound care, IV therapies, enteral feedings, and plenty more, so there's support for a wide range of health issues.

    People always stay busy here, if they wish, because there are social, religious, and cultural activities, plus free wireless internet all over the building, which is good for visitors and family. Nutrition services make meal plans and the kitchen team cooks with plenty of variety, but the facility did receive a nutrition handling citation. Another report noted a pharmacy labeling deficiency and one involving resident rights, and there have been 50 inspection deficiencies in recent years, but there's no record of actual harm from these, though they do mark areas to watch.

    St. Joseph employs a compassionate team that treats people and their families with respect, trying hard to provide thoughtful care in a comfortable place that feels like home. The center keeps nurse turnover a bit below the Massachusetts average and maintains 3.66 nurse hours per resident each day, which is just under the state average. With 123 licensed beds and about 115 residents daily, it tends to stay near full capacity. Ownership belongs to Bentley Health Group LLC and Wellington Healthcare LLC, and Landmark Health Solutions, LLC has managed things since 2006, with Jeffrey Diminico leading since 2017. The center's known for active participation in quality and wellness campaigns-things like the Fight the Flu Campaign and Sepsis Smart-and works on care transitions and culture change projects to help improve resident well-being.

    Amenities are what one would expect from a larger senior facility, and the setting tries to feel like a resort, but the main strength at St. Joseph's comes from experienced healthcare staff and the varied care options. Residents and their families can count on skilled nursing, memory care, physical, occupational, and speech therapies, orthopedic recovery paths, and programs for everything from fall prevention to end-of-life care. The center also runs training courses for staff and stays involved in healthcare policy and oversight work, which helps raise standards for everyone living there.

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