Hilltop Healthcare and Rehab

    700 Cayuga Ave, Altoona, PA, 16602
    3.5 · 43 reviews
    • Assisted living
    • Skilled nursing
    AnonymousCurrent/former resident
    2.0

    Compassionate staff, serious safety issues

    I had a mixed experience. Many therapists and nurses were compassionate, competent and helped with a remarkable rehab and discharge; the building is clean, pleasant and family-friendly. However, I also encountered serious communication and safety problems - understaffing, missed meds/meals and hygiene lapses, a non-healing wound, no in-room phones and poor discharge coordination (delayed home nurse/insurance issues) - so ask about security, staffing and wound-care before you decide.

    Pricing

    Schedule a Tour

    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

    3.47 · 43 reviews

    Overall rating

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

      3.3
    • Staff

      3.5
    • Meals

      2.5
    • Amenities

      3.0
    • Value

      3.5

    Pros

    • Compassionate, competent and understanding staff (many reports)
    • Strong rehabilitation/therapy that aided recovery and safe discharge
    • Helpful and friendly front desk and some responsive caregivers
    • Teamwork among some staff and timely clinical follow-up
    • Clean and well-kept facility according to several reviewers
    • Good meals reported by some family members
    • Private visiting room and comfortable visiting environment
    • Open/flexible visiting policy mentioned by some reviewers
    • Residents up, dressed and engaged per positive reports
    • Successful transitions home facilitated by staff and therapy
    • Pleasant views and generally nice facility appearance
    • Professional floor nursing reported in some accounts

    Cons

    • Significant variability in staff performance and reliability
    • Understaffing and infrequent nurse presence at stations
    • Communication breakdowns between medical and administrative sides
    • No in-room phones or unreliable phone access for patients
    • Restricted visitation or banned family members in some cases
    • Allegations of neglect leading to bedbound residents and wounds
    • Bedsore/wound care problems and wounds not healing
    • Unsanitary conditions: dirty bathrooms, soiled bedding, hygiene issues
    • Call bells ignored and poor responsiveness to resident needs
    • Theft and missing personal items attributed to staff
    • Discharge coordination issues, insurance denials, and delays
    • Home nursing delayed after discharge creating care gaps
    • Poor customer service, slow responses, and lack of follow-through
    • Inconsistent meal and medication timing (late meals/meds)
    • Water issues and infrequent showers reported
    • Safety and security concerns for vulnerable residents
    • Allegations of bruising and serious incidents prompting attorney involvement
    • Management problems, including new management and claims of dishonesty
    • Reports of deaths or serious harm attributed to incompetence
    • Cordless/central phones that cut out and unreliable communication hardware

    Summary review

    The reviews for Hilltop Healthcare and Rehab present a sharply divided picture, with distinct clusters of strongly positive experiences and highly critical reports. On the positive side, many reviewers praise individual staff members—describing them as compassionate, competent, and understanding—and several families credit the facility’s rehabilitation team and nursing care with substantial recovery and successful, safe discharges home. Multiple accounts mention helpful and friendly front desk staff, clinical teamwork, timely follow-up from caregivers, a generally clean and well-kept environment, private visiting spaces, pleasant views, and satisfactory meals. These reviewers often report residents who are up, dressed, engaged, and well cared for, and they highlight specific successes in therapy that enabled loved ones to return home.

    Counterbalancing those positive reports are numerous and very serious concerns focused on inconsistent care quality and operational problems. A frequent theme is variability in staff performance—some staff are praised while others are described as lazy, uncaring, or inattentive. Understaffing is cited repeatedly, with reviewers saying nurses are rarely at the station, call bells go unanswered, and response times are poor. This staffing problem ties into hygiene and safety concerns: several reviewers report unsanitary conditions such as dirty shared bathrooms, feces on toilet seats, soiled bedding, infrequent showers, and general uncleanliness. There are multiple allegations that neglect led to residents becoming bedbound, developing new wounds or bedsores, or experiencing wounds that failed to heal. At least one review alleges a death due to incompetence and others describe injuries or unexplained bruising that prompted legal action.

    Communication and administrative issues emerge as another prominent pattern. Reviewers describe a breakdown between the medical and business sides of the facility, creating problems with discharge coordination, insurance coverage denials for extended stays, and delays in arranging follow-up home nursing care. Several families reported that home nursing was late or absent after discharge, leaving vulnerable patients without timely support. In-room communication infrastructure is also repeatedly criticized: there are no phones in patient rooms, cordless phones kept at the nurses’ station crack or cut out, and families experienced difficulty reaching residents. Visitation practices appear inconsistent: while some reviewers mention a flexible or open-door visiting policy, others report restricted visitation during COVID, family members banned from the facility, or long periods (e.g., 14 days) without being able to see a loved one.

    Safety and security concerns are significant in a subset of reviews. Allegations of theft—personal items disappearing and suspected staff involvement—coupled with reports of unsecured, bedbound residents, raise worries about resident safety and supervision. Several reviewers express intent to report the facility to authorities because of perceived neglect or abuse. Customer service and management also receive mixed feedback: while some reviewers praise administration and describe a welcoming culture, there are repeated comments about poor customer service, slow responses, lack of follow-through, and accusations that management lied or mishandled complaints. A few reviewers note the facility is under new management and call it a "work in progress," suggesting transitional instability.

    Dining and day-to-day care receive mixed remarks: some families praise the food and regularity of care, while others describe late meals, late medications, malfunctioning room lights, and generally poor attention to basic needs. Physical plant impressions are similarly mixed—many note a nice, tidy facility and pleasant grounds, but the cleanliness issues raised by other reviewers are serious enough to contradict those positive impressions.

    Overall, the sentiment is highly polarized. There is consistent evidence that Hilltop can provide excellent rehabilitation and compassionate individual caregivers who achieve meaningful recoveries. However, there are also multiple and recurring reports of systemic problems—understaffing, communication failures, hygiene and wound-care lapses, theft, and inconsistent visitation policies—that have led to serious negative outcomes for some residents and families. The pattern suggests variability between shifts, units, or staff teams rather than a uniform level of care. Prospective families and referral sources should weigh both sets of reports, ask specific questions about current staffing levels, wound-care protocols, security and theft prevention measures, discharge coordination practices, in-room communication options, and how the facility has addressed the specific complaints noted here—particularly those involving neglect, wounds, or alleged abuse. If possible, an in-person tour focused on staffing presence, cleanliness, wound-care practices, and communication systems (phones/call bells) plus recent quality or regulatory inspections would help verify whether management has remedied the documented problems.

    Location

    Map showing location of Hilltop Healthcare and Rehab

    About Hilltop Healthcare and Rehab

    Hilltop Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, which sits in Altoona, Pennsylvania, provides a range of services for seniors, including nursing home care, skilled nursing, rehabilitation, assisted living, independent living, and memory care, so residents with different care needs can find what they're looking for here, and the rooms come in various studio layouts to fit different preferences. The community has 133 certified beds and is for-profit, run by Melissa Andolina, Brett Scharf, and Abraham Smilow since April 2023, and carries an affiliation with Abraham Smilow. Residents get services like nursing care, rehabilitation to help them recover after hospital stays, hospice care for those at the end of life, and memory care services made for people facing memory issues, while long-term and short-term stays are both options. Staff provide an average of 3.33 nurse hours per resident each day, which is beneath the state average, yet their nurse turnover rate at 19.8% is lower than Pennsylvania's average of 47.0%, which often helps with consistency. The community focuses on resident rights, provides nutrition and dietary services, and offers a fitness center, a library, a beauty salon, and a peaceful chapel, while social activities and events are set up to help people stay busy and connected. Residents live in a quiet, calm place, and the facility works on goals like quality improvement and resident-centered care, but it's important to note that inspection reports list 40 deficiencies, including those about infection control, nutrition, and resident rights, and the community holds a 2-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services with a general community rating of 7.9 out of 10, so families might want to review reports and visit in person if possible.

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