Overall sentiment in the reviews is mixed but leans positive about the facility itself while showing clear and repeated concerns about staffing and management. Many reviewers praise Suite Living Senior Care of Prior Lake for being a new, clean, bright, and welcoming community with a pleasant dining area and well-prepared meals. Several accounts highlight compassionate, kind, and loving staff members who provide attentive care; one reviewer specifically called out Ashley (head nurse) and hospice care received strong praise. The fast admission process, lack of upfront assessment/community fees, small resident population, and proximity to reviewers are repeatedly mentioned as advantages. Multiple reviewers reported improvements in residents’ physical wellbeing and described seniors socializing in a friendly environment.
However, there is a persistent and significant theme around staffing pressures and management issues. Multiple summaries note heavy workloads, staff burnout, uneven distribution of tasks, and staff missing scheduled breaks. Specific behaviors raising concern include staff being on the phone constantly, staff sitting in the HR office during shifts, and frequent late shifts (an example cited was a 40-minute late shift). These operational problems are tied to reports of mixed caregiver quality: while some caregivers are described as efficient and kind, others are labeled inattentive. Several reviewers explicitly said they would not recommend the community or would not return, indicating that negative experiences are strong for a subset of families.
Safety and care continuity concerns appear in several reviews. Notable incidents include an alleged neglect during the dying process and a bathroom fall where caregivers were reportedly not present when needed. There are also mentions of occasional messy rooms and an unhelpful response to a patient request. Although some reviewers stated that initial hiccups were resolved after the first months, the seriousness of the reported incidents (particularly around end-of-life care and falls) elevates the risk concerns and suggests areas that need administrative attention.
Views on community life and activities are mixed. A number of reviewers describe the environment as quiet and, to some, boring; others say the community is bright, sunny, and that seniors socialize. This divergence may reflect the small resident population and the stage of the community’s development (it is described as brand new and having few residents), which can lead to variability in daily programming and social engagement until occupancy grows or programming matures.
Management and leadership are recurring focal points. While some families experienced compassion and responsiveness (with initial issues resolved), others raised direct concerns about the head of care and broader management practices. The operational issues that reviewers describe (staff phone use, staff in HR, uneven workloads, missed breaks) are management-level problems that can affect staff morale, turnover, and ultimately resident care quality.
In summary, Suite Living Senior Care of Prior Lake receives consistent praise for its physical environment, dining quality, some individual caregivers, and ease of admission. At the same time, multiple reviewers report systemic staffing and management problems that have led to variable caregiver attentiveness and serious safety/neglect concerns in a minority of cases. Prospective families should weigh the strong positives around facility quality and certain praised staff against the documented variability in staffing, management responsiveness, and safety-related incidents. When considering this community, it would be prudent to ask management about current staffing levels and ratios, turnover, how they handle meal and medication coverage during shift changes, their protocols for falls and end-of-life care, and examples of how initial problems were resolved for other residents.
