Overall impression: Reviews for Diversicare of Meridian are strongly mixed and polarized. There is a recurring pattern where certain departments and staff members receive high praise—particularly therapy services and admissions—while core aspects of nursing care, food service, facility upkeep, and management communication draw repeated, serious complaints. Many families report positive therapy outcomes and caring interactions, but a substantial number of reviews describe safety, cleanliness, and responsiveness problems that raise concern.
Care quality and safety: Therapy (PT/OT) is consistently cited as a strength. Multiple reviewers described excellent therapists, therapy-focused care, clear instruction, and measurable progress (for example, post-stroke improvement). These therapy services are sometimes noted as being outsourced or run by another company, which may explain why therapy experiences differ from overall facility care. Conversely, nursing and day-to-day caregiving show a wide range of experiences: some reviewers called nurses terrific and loving, while others described understaffed, uncaring, or unprofessional nursing staff. Serious safety issues are reported, including patients being left unattended after therapy, delayed responses to call buttons, resulting pressure ulcers/bedsores from lack of turning, inadequate care during accidents, and in at least one instance, a patient death tied to poor response. These reports point to systemic staffing and responsiveness problems rather than isolated incidents.
Staff, culture, and communication: The staff reviews are highly variable. Many reviewers praise individual caregivers and teams for being attentive, compassionate, and treating residents like family. The admission liaison and marketing/administration at intake receive specific commendation for making the admission process easy and providing proactive follow-up. However, a significant number of reviews report rude, hostile, or defensive behavior from nurses and other staff, bullying, and poor HR responses. High staff turnover and management indifference are repeatedly mentioned, with comments about no accountability and a 'honeymoon' period where early impressions deteriorate. Communication and phone responsiveness are frequent pain points—families describe difficulty reaching staff, rare callbacks, and long wait times on weekends.
Dining, housekeeping, and facility condition: Dining receives overwhelmingly negative feedback in multiple areas: cold meals, poor quality, small portions, and even withheld portions are recurring complaints. Housekeeping/environmental issues are also present—reviews mention a messy environment, missing clothes, and overall building deterioration. Maintenance needs improvement according to several summaries, and while the facility is described as historically beautiful and once among the best in town, many reviewers feel it has declined physically and operationally.
Administrative and billing concerns: Several reviewers reported billing and administrative problems, including aggressive collection letters, Medicaid processing delays, and missing personal items such as jewelry. These administrative stressors compound clinical and interpersonal issues and contribute to family dissatisfaction and plans to move residents elsewhere.
Patterns and notable contradictions: The dominant pattern is inconsistency. Therapy and certain staff/teams are repeatedly lauded, making the facility attractive for rehabilitation stays when PT/OT is the priority. Yet inconsistent nursing coverage, poor meal service, maintenance decline, poor phone responsiveness, and reports of patient safety lapses create a contradictory experience—some families would happily return or recommend the facility for therapy and select staff, while others strongly advise against it and describe it as the worst place in town. The presence of both glowing and damning reviews suggests variability by shift, team, or timeframe rather than uniform quality.
Bottom line: If evaluating Diversicare of Meridian, expect strong therapy and admissions experiences at times and the possibility of compassionate individual caregivers. At the same time, be cautious about potential nursing understaffing, delayed responses to patient needs, food and cleanliness issues, administrative/billing problems, and inconsistent management oversight. Prospective residents and families should ask specific questions about nursing ratios, call-button response policies, recent staffing stability, meal practices, and how missing-item/billing complaints are handled before deciding. These targeted inquiries can help determine whether the aspects praised in some reviews (therapy, kind staff) will be present alongside the less favorable patterns reported by other reviewers.
