The reviews for Lakewood Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center are highly polarized, with a strong split between accounts that describe excellent, compassionate rehabilitation care and accounts that allege serious safety, staffing and management failures. On the positive side, many reviewers praise the facility’s short-term rehabilitation services and physical therapy programs, reporting measurable recovery and successful discharges. Several aides, therapists and individual nurses are repeatedly commended for going above and beyond, delivering patient-centered and family-like care, and providing attentive, compassionate service. Multiple reviewers describe the facility as clean and well-maintained, with a welcoming environment, creative activities, and helpful maintenance staff. New ownership is mentioned by some as a positive change, and the therapy department in particular receives frequent praise as a strength of the facility.
Contrasting sharply with those positive accounts are numerous and serious negative reports. A recurring, and very concerning, theme is clinical negligence and safety lapses: reviewers allege TPN mismanagement, missed critical lab values, medication errors (including an allegation linking incorrect medication to a death), oxygen mismanagement, and other failures of clinical oversight. There are also claims of improper charting and attempts to dodge regulatory scrutiny. These are not isolated complaints; several reviews describe multiple, compounding clinical errors and omissions. Safety concerns extend beyond medication and nutrition to include near-fall incidents, missed signs of weight loss or edema, and an overall perception that monitoring and follow-up are inadequate.
Staffing, behavior and accountability are central tension points in the reviews. Many accounts praise individual CNAs and aides as caring and dependable, but there are nearly as many reports of rude, lazy, or even abusive behavior by nursing staff, long call bell delays (from 30 minutes up to multiple hours), staff screaming at residents, and inadequate emergency response—some families reported that calling 911 elicited a faster reaction than asking facility staff for help. Staffing shortages and high turnover are repeatedly cited; one review reports only two nurses on duty for 100 patients. These reports of understaffing and inconsistent staff performance help explain the wide variability in resident experiences and the polarized overall impressions.
Operational and management concerns are another strong theme. Multiple reviewers describe unresponsive administration, poor phone communication, social workers or managers not returning calls, and slow or absent follow-through on complaints. Billing disputes (for example, ambulance charge disagreements) and reports of misleading recruitment and pay practices were also mentioned. Infrastructure problems—plumbing leaks, reported insect presence, bad odors in some reports, and ineffective air conditioning in hot rooms—appear intermittently across complaints, suggesting inconsistent facility maintenance. Dining is likewise inconsistent in reviews: while some praise meals and say dining is satisfactory, others describe food as inedible.
A notable pattern is the coexistence of very positive individualized care experiences with systemic problems that place some residents at risk. Many reviewers explicitly say that care depends heavily on which staff members are on duty: when the committed, competent aides and therapists are present, residents thrive; when understaffing, inattentive or poorly trained personnel are on shift, outcomes and safety suffer. This variability produces deeply divided opinions, ranging from “best care” and “highly recommended” to “worst place” and “avoid.”
Given this mix of strong rehabilitation outcomes for some and serious allegations of neglect and safety risks from others, prospective residents and families should approach Lakewood with both caution and close scrutiny. Specific, practical things to verify in person include current staffing ratios, call bell response times, medication and TPN protocols, how the facility documents and investigates incidents, vaccination and infection-control policies, recent state inspection or deficiency reports, and the facility’s process for communicating with families. When touring or evaluating the facility, ask for measurable evidence of quality (e.g., therapy success metrics, staff retention rates, recent corrective action plans) and identify key staff members who will oversee care. The reviews indicate that the therapy department and many frontline aides are real strengths, but there are enough serious accusations of clinical mismanagement, unresponsiveness, and safety lapses that families should be vigilant and confirm recent improvements or corrective actions before deciding on placement.
