Merrill Gardens at Green Valley Ranch

Tom Mason

My folks moved into Merrill Gardens 2 months ago. I was extremely concerned with their ability to adapt from moving from their home of 20 years. Well…. I cannot even get ahold of them now as they have met so many new friends and are happy as can be. They rave about the food, activities and the staff. Thank you to the staff for making my parents feel welcomed and at home.

John and/or Liz Wade

This review comes from a resident of only two months and was written during the second wave of the pandemic. We are in our mid 80’s and do not need assistance. We chose Merrill Gardens at Green Valley Ranch after several visits and tours of the facility. We have written our thoughts to management and have received no responses. Thus our comments: Upon move-in, we learned a few basic things: 1). The residents are friendly, intelligent, and fun. 2) The staff is wonderful, BUT they are stretched well beyond capacity - and terribly underpaid. 3) The facility is incapable of providing the contracted services because of staff depletion. Too often there is only one person serving meals, the cleaning staff is short and hasn’t learned how to do the job, the activities’ director is leaving and has been overburdened with both her own responsibilities as well as concierge driving of residents to appointments. We have been without a health department manager for several weeks. 4) The manager of the facility has basically one answer to reported problems “We’re looking into it.” She doesn’t give specific answers to complaints from the Residents’ Council or individuals. She is rarely visible to the residents, staying in her office most of the time. 5) The facility is showing its age and needs some sprucing up. The maintenance department has one person who is capable, friendly, and overworked. He needs help and has lost his assistant. Individuals from the kitchen staff have been brought in to help occasionally, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and leaving the kitchen staff short. What is the answer? Make the jobs worth applying for. In this time of pandemic, we all know that many people have chosen to stay home with government supplements. Wages here are at the minimum and should be made more appealing. Employees must be vetted, and this should make them even more valuable to the company. Their salaries do not show it. We know that getting employees who are vetted is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Merrill is a business, and should recognize the patterns that lead to this kind of problem. These should have been seen early and dealt with it well before the problems occurred. Management should be advertising and interviewing in anticipation of losses so they have lists of people they could contact when openings occur. They need people in the pipeline. Instead, we have a situation where several of the management staff refused to be vaccinated meaning they were gone with the new state rulings. Merrill Gardens is now without a health director, an accountant, and an activities director to name only a few. Management seems to think they don’t have to keep the residents informed, residents who are not stupid. Many are businessmen or women who saw what was happening and, needless to say, have become irritated or angered by how all this has been handled. I know of many others, who, like us, are upset and starting to think about whether they should leave Merrill. We don’t want to, but when we are not getting what we are paying high fees for - and what the company put in the contract as our due - what other alternative might we have? Merrill Gardens risks losing its rating as the top place for seniors to live in Henderson. If they don’t turn things around quickly, Merrill will lose not only its rating, but its residents as well.

Rich G

It's with regret that a year and a half after my five star review, I'm having to revise it now down to just one. I have waited months in the hope that it would not come to this but here we are. What started out in January 2020 as a promising beginning for my parents has since significantly degraded. Not, to be clear, because of the pandemic through which I steadfastly supported the facility and its staff and management. They navigated a tremendously difficult and unpredictable event and, by and large, succeeded in keeping the residents, including my parents, safe and secure. My reason for this downgrade is the active and protracted negligence that facility management has demonstrated regarding staff retention and hiring over the months since the pandemic has eased. While the physical property itself is first-rate, Merrill Gardens' crown jewel was its staff, the people entrusted to interact with and care for its residents daily. One cannot overemphasize how critically important it is in the business of senior living to have a trusted team vetted over years and loved by the vulnerable residents under their care. They cook for our elderly, serve them, clean their homes, come when they call, and make them laugh and feel loved and safe when they are lonely or scared. I am fortunate to live close by and so have personally gotten to know many of those outstanding individuals who weathered the pandemic along with its residents and stepped up as others left to shoulder greater and greater responsibility. Those who remained should be honored and rewarded. Instead, residents have seen service and their experience plummet as their caretakers are not only left unappreciated but allowed to leave over a couple bucks an hour to take their talents elsewhere willing to pay what the market requires. Staff retention and quality is a metric that may not rise to the level of profit, free cash flow and return on investment at MG's board meetings but its absence there is most keenly felt by its most important stakeholder, the customer. The resident. I hope a real effort will be made to address and solve this problem, soon and with the care, commitment and focus it deserves.

Dave Hildebrandt

Although the facility is very nice, the excessive rent increases as well as dealing with the management has been an unpleasant experience. My mother's rent has gone up $800 since she moved in 4 years ago, and the services an additional $200. We have seen a new general manager nearly every year, and this past year had to deal with a two week health lock down of all residents as a mystery virus circulated through the facility. There was very poor communication from management on what was happening, and my 88 year old mother became almost completely inactive as she was strongly advised to remain in her unit despite her health being fine. The facility also would not adequately explain why the Health Department rated it a "C". Finally, there has been considerable turnover in the support staff who interact with my mother. Continuity of staff is a valuable asset to residents in assisted living facilities, and apparently this facility cannot seem to practice this. If my mother was younger and in better health we'd move her.