Overall sentiment in the reviews is highly mixed, with clear patterns of strong short-term rehab performance for some residents but significant and recurring concerns about long-term care, staffing reliability, management responsiveness, and cleanliness. Multiple reviewers praise the therapy and rehabilitation services, noting that therapy staff are excellent and that rehab helped patients get ready to return home. Several family members and residents describe nurses and other clinical staff as warm, friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. Positive mentions also include a clean facility (according to some), large or private rooms in certain cases, on-site amenities such as a beauty shop and movie room, activities clearly posted in large print, and a convenient location. A number of families specifically indicated satisfaction with admissions help and ongoing communication when the facility met expectations, and there is at least one report of successful 24-hour care for an Alzheimer’s patient.
Contrasting sharply with these positives are numerous and specific negative reports that reveal inconsistent care and operational problems. Several reviews document unresponsiveness and perceived idleness among staff, along with chronic understaffing that contributes to missed medication timing, meals served late, and lapses in basic hygiene (dirty showers and towels). Cleanliness is described very differently across reviewers — while some call the facility clean, others describe it as dirty, with old, dingy furniture and small rooms. One reviewer called the food inedible, while others enjoyed meals, indicating variability in dining quality and service. There are also serious allegations related to professional conduct and safety: at least one family reported multiple ER visits for a resident due to care failures, billing and reimbursement disputes, and an allegation that a receptionist was using drugs. These reports are amplified by complaints about poor communication from leadership, including failure to notify families about COVID infections and a director of nursing and administrator who did not return calls.
The temporal and case-specific differences are notable: a 2019 admission for a father produced uniformly positive comments about rehab, therapy, and staff, whereas a 2023 admission for a mother was described as disastrous, with multiple systemic failures. This suggests variability over time or inconsistent unit-level performance — some units or shifts may provide high-quality, family-centered care while others fall short. Many reviewers explicitly describe the facility as understaffed and lacking accountability from management, which plausibly explains the uneven experiences. Amenities such as a beauty shop, movie room, and visible activities can be strengths, but they do not offset core concerns about safety, medication management, and effective clinical oversight for some residents.
In summary, Cambridge Health And Rehabilitation Center - Richmond receives both strong praise and serious criticism. Its strengths center on rehabilitation/therapy effectiveness, compassionate nursing on some shifts, helpful admission processes, and certain amenities and conveniences. Its weaknesses are significant and recurring: inconsistent care quality, staffing shortages, lapses in medication and meal delivery, occasional unsanitary conditions, billing/communication problems, and perceived poor responsiveness from administration. Prospective residents and families should consider the mixed pattern: the facility can provide excellent short-term rehab and has supportive staff in some instances, but there are documented risks for inconsistent long-term care and management issues. Those considering placement may want to ask specific questions about current staffing levels, medication and infection-control protocols, management escalation procedures, billing practices, and to request recent references or inspection reports to help assess current performance and consistency.
