PruittHealth - Augusta

Herman

PruittHealth - Augusta was clean. The staff was on hand to greet you when you came in the door. The staff was friendly. They have a community area where older ones could meet to have dinner and things like that. I had a meal there. I don't think the food was heated up well enough. The food was good, it's just that it was kind of cold. The dining set up was fine, no issues. The lighting was adequate. The size was sufficient. Physical appearance was in good condition as far as I could see. Also, I understand that the staff check in on the residents to make sure that they're OK, and to help them with their medications as needed.

Baidya Roy

Rooms were OK; Food was less than average; Service was poor. I selected Pruitt Healthcare in Evans, Ga, as a rehabilitation facility after cardiac surgery because it had availability and was near our house. Unfortunately, I am sharing the overall poor experience that I had there, including some that caused delays in my medical care. First the positives: The OT/PT team was good. Though they inexplicably missed a few days (they were supposed to come daily), they were very helpful when they came. The sessions were about 15 minutes each. Also, there were a few of the nursing team who went above and beyond: Juanita, Trisha (during the week), Kathy (on the weekends), and London (the nursing manager). I commend them for their care. But unfortunately, the service overall was very poor. For example, I requested to see an MD early during my stay. It took a week of repeated requests to get a single visit with Dr. Parsley during the entirety of my 2.5-week stay. I continued to have major health concerns after this visit and would relay the information to the nurses, who said they texted Dr. Parsley about them. But I never received any response to most of my medical concerns. The team helped me take a bath on Tuesday, Tuesday, and Saturday. But one Thursday, the daytime shift said it was the afternoon shifts’ turn to help with my bath. But when the afternoon shift came around, they didn’t help me with a bath—because they said my bath had been on the morning schedule. So I did not get a bath at all that day, which was a disappointment when I could only get baths a maximum of 3 days a week. That week, I went almost 4 days without a bath. In general, I frequently waited 30 minutes or more after pressing the call button. By that time, I either just had to go in my diaper (as an adult male!) because no one would help me get to the bathroom, or I finally started getting up on my own, even though I was a fall risk. Many team members seemed to do the bare minimum. When we’d ask for a specific service, a frequent refrain was “that’s not my job.” For example, when asked to place a liner on a bedside commode, the employee said it wasn’t her job. Ultimately, my wife placed the liner herself. Seemingly simple requests, like for additional pillows, were not accommodated. It was also my experience that many of the nurses had poor attitudes. They would give commands rather than listen to what you need, and often leave without helping. The facility’s transportation service was very poor. In one case, a team member failed to preauthorize a medical transport that would have been covered by my insurance. We had to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket and are still in the process of filing forms to see if this can be reimbursed retroactively. In another case, despite knowing we needed a medical vehicle with wheelchair transport, they wrote the order for stretcher transport. This happened on multiple days. In one case, when a stretcher-ambulance couldn't fit my wheelchair, we had to wait an additional hour for the correct medical transport. This made me late to a scheduled out-of-facility doctor appointment. This stretcher-versus-wheelchair vehicle mistake happened the next day too. During one of the waits for the correct type of ambulance, I was told it would arrive in 10 minutes. In reality, I waited for the ambulance for 2 hours (this was on the way back to the facility so at least I wasn’t late for another doctor appointment). The social worker assigned to my care, Ms. M, was uncaring, inaccessible, and had a poor attitude. At discharge, she was rarely available, despite numerous methods of reaching out to her and advising other team members that we had several questions regarding our impending discharge that we would like for her to answer. My wife and I would send messages and ask her colleagues to text her. At one point, my wife went into Ms. M office, only to be told to wait outside because Ms. M was on the phone. She waited outside for 45 minutes and Ms. M never came out of her office. My wife then returned to my room, and Ms. M never came to speak with us. In general, everything Ms. M was arranged at the last minute while we were left in the dark. For example, because she placed the DME order too late, we didn’t even get the wheelchair until I had already been home for several hours. What’s more, we were delayed in getting the home health services covered by my insurance because Ms. M did not send the referrals on time. I was home for 6 days before receiving the initial home health evaluation. The home health company was shocked that they didn’t receive my paperwork until several days after I’d been discharged. It turned out this was because Ms. M did not check faxes in a timely manner, so she was not aware that the first home health company rejected the referral. My daughter had to alert her of this when my daughter called that home healthcare company to set up an evaluation appointment. Each time, my daughter tried to call Ms. M, she’d call on average five times before actually speaking to her or even getting her voicemail. For the second home healthcare company referral, Enhabit told us they would accept our referral but they couldn’t make our first appointment until the physician-signed order was sent to them. Ms. M had apparently sent an unsigned order. My daughter requested this from Ms. M via email and phone. Ms. M did not respond to either. Finally, my daughter called and said she was going to file a state licensing complaint if the signed order was not sent over because it was delaying my care. That was when Ms. M finally answered her phone. Ms. M then proceeded to claim that the orders are “never signed” and “it has never been a problem before” and implied that it was my fault for picking a home healthcare company that Ms. M did not regularly work with. Eventually, after 10 minutes of my daughter pressing her to get a signed order, Ms. M said she had the signed order after-all and would send it over. Because my post-surgery weight loss became a concern, I also want to comment on the food, which was below average. Most of the time, I couldn't eat what was served by Pruitt. The menu had only a few items that were repeated over and over. I lost 16 pounds during my stay. I came to rely on food my wife brought from home. I had to repeatedly ask for items such as the nutritional supplement, Glucerna, that the team knew I needed. They also frequently forgot to help me adjust the bed when the food arrived, which meant I had to do that myself, even though on some days I could barely move.

Monfredia

My father is in PruittHealth - Augusta. He's up moving around and about. They do a very good job. He's eating, so I guess the food is good. He goes and plays cards. They have bingo, and they were doing music and motion when I was over there a couple of weeks ago. Even though he's in a wheelchair, they had him moving around and stuff like that. He's doing physical therapy and everything that he wasn't doing at the other nursing home. They don't have a salon. We have to take him out to get his hair cut.

Mrs Joe J

My dad is currently at Pruitt Health in Augusta .I met him at a Dr appointment today and I must say he was happy and well groomed. It appears as if he is being taken care of very good. He stated that the staff is very friendly and attentive. Just wanted to give some positive feedback to the staff here.

Jenny

I visited PruittHealth Augusta every day for 19 months for my husband. They didn't have enough staff. The room itself gets a 2. They half-heartedly mopped and did not change the bed frequently enough. The food was pretty good. They had bingo, Name That Tune, activities every day of the week, and movies. The people who ran it were really good. The staff did all they could. They were understaffed, but they were really good with the residents. The VA paid for it, but if he was a private paying person, he would not have gone there.

bruiser3

I've visited this facility several times and was always struck by how squeaky clean it was. I took my husband with me on my second visit and he was like "Wow this place shines." The staff was very friendly. The courtyard was nice. The lobby was bright and sunny. The facility takes in seriously ill patients so in the end I thought that my mom might get a little bummed out, but the patients were obviously well taken care of. For an older building, their really wasn't much of a smell at all. Rooms were a bit small.