Heritage Village Assisted Living of Mesa

I'd like to respond to Amber's review. My name is Gary Crosby and my family is the owner of Heritage Village. Let me start by saying that I will be first to state we can make mistakes like anyone. Also, I commend her for loving and obviously caring deeply for her grandfather. It grieves me greatly that I need to respond to someone who, for any reason, is disappointed in our care. We want and strive everyday to be the very best in our industry. However, at the same time, pounding out on a keyboard inaccurate and degrading remarks (for which I will address here) because you are angry isn't fair to us nor to those that provide a tremendous service to our loved ones and community as a whole. Please consider the following: 1) All of our caregivers have taken the courses and are certified by the state of Arizona. They also go through our rigorous screening process prior to working with us. Amber's statement that our staff is not properly trained is a factually grievous inaccuracy. Our staff members take pride in their training and indeed meet or exceed the state's training and certification requirements. We care for 60 residents currently, as of this writing, in three different homes on-site. We care for many advanced Alzheimer's residents every day and we do a fine job providing for their care. Our resident's families will differ greatly from Amber's opinion regarding their loved ones' excellent care. In fact, one of our first residents by the name of Sue has been a shining example of our care for late-stage Alzheimer's. She has been with us for 2 1/2 years (since we opened). She has actually gotten better--we think due to our care (which includes activities, proper nutrition, and a well-designed home for such human interaction)! Her husband will attest to our excellent care! This is just one example of many. It is therefore factually true that we can and do care for our residents very well. 2) Regarding the next inaccurate statement: We "dumped" her grandfather "at the local ER". As anyone can see, it is not appropriate to use of the word "dump" when referring to people even if you put "quotation marks" around the word. I think we all can reason together that it would be inaccurate to state that 911 was called to have someone transported and "dumped" at the ER without a health emergency. In Amber's grandfather's case, of course we were concerned for her grandfather's health and welfare before calling 911. Of course we also properly called the POA to let the family know that he had been transported to the ER. This is standard common courtesy and protocol. In response to his return to our community, we indeed require the person to be stabilized. The Discharge Nurse at the hospital is experienced to know if a person is stable enough to return. We don't want to have to just turn around and send them back to the ER again. And this is what occurred in Amber's grandfather's case. The Discharge Nurse determined that he needed to stay in the hospital for awhile to stabilize and then the Discharge Nurse determined that he needed a higher level of care and was discharged to a Skilled Nursing Facility. This, of course, is strictly the decision of the discharging hospital for we would have accepted him back with open arms had he been able. 3) Next inaccuracy is that we don't return phone calls unless we are threatened or demanded to return them. Our phones, our residents and our reputation are our life blood. There are many individuals that Amber could contact, including me but didn't. My name and number is clearly printed on our information and is on our website at HeritageMesa.com. 4) I'd like to point out here that Amber states that we are "a great place for older senior citizens". We indeed treat all residents with love and kindness. It's inaccurate to state this and yet, at the same time, state that we treated her grandfather less than anyone else. Wouldn't you agree? I hope you can see that this review is not accurate of our community. I invite all to come and see the most remarkable Assisted Living community in the Southwest at 8035 E Brown Rd in Mesa, AZ and see that the only two accurate statements really in Amber's entire review of Heritage Village is "Heritage Village is a beautiful facility" and, "Heritage Village [is] a great place for older senior citizens who are no longer able to live alone". Finally, I want to point out to everyone here that we received SeniorAdvisor's "BEST ASSISTED LIVING COMMUNITY IN MESA ARIZONA" for this year!! We don't get this award by not trying extremely hard to be the very best in all we do. Thank you for allowing me to respond to this review. Gary Crosby, Owner Heritage Village Assisted Living, LLC

Please come back and tell me why you believe we are too expensive. I often compare our rates to our competition and our rates are lower to mid-range--especially is this true when comparing in-your-own-home care. We typically run less than 1/4 their rates! Like I said, please come back and don't let cost be an issue for anyone.

Thank you John for the review. Often we have competitors who pound out inaccuracies about us to try to sway residents away from the most remarkable assisted living community perhaps in the United States. We invite all to come and see what we are all about.

Thank you for the nice review and compliments. We do have separate cooking and cleaning staff from our care givers so that they can focus strictly on superb meals, cleanliness, and excellent care.

Thank you for the kind review. If I may offer any comfort regarding our rates, I can promise you we are very competitive and yet still offer more than anyone else in regard to our community, cleanliness, food and nutrition, and ultimately the level of care.

Thank you for the nice review. We do try to be the very best.

Thank you for the compliment Cindra. We do offer the very best care for our residents.

Thank you Brent for the nice review and compliments.

Thank you for your review. Please contact me and let me know who would like seconds! We certainly don't want anyone to be hungry. This is the first I have heard that our portions are small. We also offer snacks throughout the day. All one has to do is ask! Thank you.

Sorry you were not impressed. I invite you to come back, competition or not, and I will personally give you a tour to show you how we have created the very best of environments to foster staff and resident interaction better than anyone due to our limited number of residents in each home. The staff ratio is better than any of our competition. By the way, there is approximately 1,400 feet of private sidewalk in our community. How did you miss that? Please come back to see us!