WindChime of Marin Memory Care Community

When we visited Windchime to see about housing my brother there, the facility and staff looked and acted wonderfully. It was through his first year there that we discovered the «real» Windchime. There is a complete lack of follow through with the care plan, no communication and no follow up with family members. On our visits, we have seen residents left on the floor while staff chat in the hallway. We never saw our brother in his own clothes. We would continue buying him new articles to wear, but they were never on his body or in his room. We even labeled them then would see other residents wearing his shirts. I think the worst thing is the complete lack of communication and not providing the care that is stated in the care plan. I must agree with Connee Y’s reviw. Now that he is at another facility, we see the difference.

Here is another point of view. My husband’s father became a resident in early 2013. The way the care is assessed and priced is supposed to work like this as far as I can tell. You meet with the team and a write up of what care will be needed is created. You agree in writing to what is called a «care assessment». There are points for each care item but they don’t tell you what a point translates to in dollars. So far so good, sort of. But eventually of course your loved one will most likely need more care. So you meet with the care team again. What happens next in our experience goes like this: You don’t agree with the assessment or you have some questions. For example it shows he is supposed to be bathed twice a week but you observe that a lot of the time your loved one is unkempt, hair is greasy etc. And so you wonder if he in fact Is being bathed twice a week. And so while you make inquiries you do not pay that portion of your monthly invoice until the care can be assessed and/​or agreed to (in writing!) again. In our case, we called and told the accounting person that we would not be paying the full care amount for that month until the care assessment could be approved. Now what happens is what I call the «great avoid» whereby the left hand doesn’t apparently know what the right hand is doing. You get the next month’s bill and lo and behold there is a $ 50 late fee on it! You call again and speak to the accounting person and you explain why you «short paid» the amount from the previous month even though you had already called to tell them this and you ask the head person to call to discuss. This person never returns the call and then the accounting person calls again and says you’re going to be charged another late fee because «corporate» requires this of them. Pretty awful accounting. The other thing they do is they send out revised invoices once you’ve already received them so that at any given time you might have three invoices with the same invoice number on it and three different amounts! As an accounting person, I can tell you this is not how it should be done and can create all kinds of problems. Just be forewarned that their accounting and care assessment processes need work!

Well, where do I begin.
My family and I have been looking all over Marin county and Napa county for a memory care facility to look over my mother. I have been very stressed out looking for a place that would care for and accommodate my mothers needs.
A couple of weeks ago upon arriving to WindChime I was greeted by the Executive Director Bradlee who was really amazing, very hospitable and very knowledgeable. I told her about my mother and the situation that she was in. Bradlee was very supportive and knew exactly what I am going through. She said she would love to help me and my mother out with what ever I needed and with recourses to finding the best possible solution.
She gave me a tour of the facility. During the tour I watched very carefully how the care givers interacted with the residents and from what i saw the care givers were very attentive toward the residents which was a big plus. The facility was very clean and tidy which was another plus. I also notice that WindChime is the only memory care facility in the Northern California with a music memory program like in the documentary «Alive Inside» I was very very excited about that!
We then stepped into her office and spoke about what needed to happen to get her to move into WindChime. It was going to be an easy transition and practically seamless. My mother is now living at WindChime and her quality of life is amazing their.
!!!Thank You Bradlee you have an amazing team at WindChime Of Marin!!!

I am not a very active Unilocaler, but I decided to update a couple of reviews from a year ago or more, and that would include an update for Windchime.
I briefly perused the other reviews of WIndChime, and I must to say that I am stunned by the review of Carol H. I don’t know what the nature of her experience might have been, but frankly I cannot fathom how she could conclude that the management is unresponsive or callous. My Dad has been there for three and one half years now, and I have never found anyone there to be unresponsive. Sometimes busy and prioritizing, but never unresponsive. Nor has there been a change in management: the primary members of the management team (the Executive Director and the Director of assisted living) haven’t changed in over 3 years (the current Executive Director started just 2 or 3 months after my father became a resident). I can only assume that whatever the experience was, that it must have been quite difficult to trigger such a reaction for this other reviewer. But I do feel compelled to write that my experience has been very different than she has described, and that my experience has spanned three and half years. And for me, it is a relief to see that other reviewers have had experiences that are more in line with what I have described… I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone with my words.
In closing, I’d just like to say that I wouldn’t change a word of my original review. I could perhaps add many specific examples of the kind of care that has earned my praise and deep gratitude. I could also add that I have seen the staff deal with lots of other residents over the years, and have also witnessed how they have adjusted their approaches to my Dad as he has slowly declined… and this is just more testimony to the skill and devotion of the staff there. Oh, and I could say Dad has remained happy through all of his difficulties… which still is a (delightful) surprise. But that is about all I could add.
Windchime has been a godsend for my father, for me, and for all the other members of my family.

From the moment you walk through the door you feel the love. A sense of genuine caring. From top management to engineering staff you could feel they had a heart for service. The caregivers were kind and respective to the residents. The building itself was very homey in its feel and very clean which says a lot. I would not hesitate to recommend this first rate community to any of my clients who look to me to place their loved ones. I can only tell them that if it were MY loved one I would look no further. Good job to the whole team…

Let me count the way that Windchimes disappointed us.
Well I guess I won’t but all I can say is please look beyond the lobby and the pr person as it is not what it seems. We were led to believe the residents are treated to a lovely experience including dining in the lovely dining room but on closer inspection and daily visits these dining experiences are few and far between.
On the whole the caregivers, the ones on the ground floor doing the work, are quite kind and hardworking. However the management from the top down, are really rather unresponsive and callous. If I could only list all the problems we encountered, it would be quite hard to believe. I was shocked at the state I found my loved one and had to be so proactive for him that I ended up calling 911. I just cannot believe that this place, once a wonderful almost five star facility under previous management, has progressed to where it is now.
I would look elsewhere when placing a dementia loved one. Perhaps if the loved one is highly functioning it wouldn’t be quite as bad but someone needing that extra attention? This is not the place.