Because of my bad review the owner of the program is now sending me a generic response about not…read morebeing able to respond to fraudulent posts. My post is anything but fraudulent so let me remind them of what they put my family through:
WHY I CAN'T RECOMMEND PCH As the mother of a former PCH patient, I do not recommend this treatment center. In fact, I believe my 23-year-old daughter, who dealt with suicidal ideation in the wake of her brother's cancer battle, might be alive today if PCH had been simply been honest with us. NOT LICENSED FOR RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT This is not a licensed residential treatment center; they are only certified for intensive outpatient, a fact PCH neglected to share with us. From the start, their representative was not transparent about how their off-site client living arrangements would affect the type and amount of our insurance reimbursement--a detail that cost us tens of thousands of dollars. Did they care more about receiving our $28,000-$32,000 a month (upfront) than potentially crippling us financially? Were they taking advantage of our desperation?
WHAT FELT LIKE BAIT AND SWITCH After she called Blue Shield, our PCH intake person told me we had "great coverage" that would pay 50 percent for the first $7,000 out of pocket for out-of-network treatment; after that, it would pay 100 percent. Before admitting my daughter, I also called to verify this was an accurate reimbursement for out-of-network residential treatment and Blue Shield confirmed it, so we thought we were covered. Two months later, we found out PCH never even billed for residential treatment. Instead, they only billed for intensive outpatient treatment (3 hrs/day, 3 days/week)--a term we'd never even heard before! Billing for intensive outpatient resulted in reimbursement of just a few hundred dollars a week--a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands we had paid upfront each month. It was only when I called PCH, asking for preauthorization for my daughter's third month, that they told me our insurance was being billed for intensive outpatient. I couldn't believe it! "What are you talking about?" I kept asking. "She LIVES there." This new employee couldn't/wouldn't explain it to me, simply saying they were billing correctly. During another call, the same employee became so flustered she put on her supervisor, who was also unable to provide me with a direct answer. She then connected me with PCH's CFO, who acted defensive from the start and began interrogating the family friend I had on the phone with me. It took 5 minutes before the CFO finally admitted the truth: under Blue Shield, PCH doesn't qualify as a residential treatment facility. That's because they aren't even licensed as one. If the CFO knew this, why didn't our intake person--and why on earth didn't she tell us this from the start?
NOT SECURE ENOUGH FOR HIGH-RISK PATIENTS Even though PCH talks about residential or in-residence treatment on their website (I have bills listing my daughter's care as residential), a true residential treatment center is locked-down, meaning patients can't leave the premises unsupervised. This is a very important distinction and one that many frantic parents may not realize as they seek out a safe place for their loved one. Even though PCH is supposed to be focused on mental issues, many patients there had addiction problems as well, and this often frightened my daughter. When her brother began losing his battle with cancer, my daughter became emotionally depressed and chemically unbalanced. She would have been much safer in a true residential facility. PCH lets its patients leave alone on "passes" for hours at a time, and after my daughter ended her life, I found a note describing how she planned to carry out her suicide while off on a PCH pass.
A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE The truth: my daughter wasn't safe at PCH, but then I didn't know that all treatment centers weren't set up like this. I do know she was miserable there and seemed to be getting worse, not better. After realizing they hadn't been forthright with us, we pulled her from PCH. If she'd been someplace more secure (and transparent) all along, our story might have ended differently. Instead, my daughter came home and went into intensive private therapy. I wish I'd admitted her to a real residential treatment center, but after such a horrible experience at PCH, we were wary. Once she took her life, I told her PCH Program Director, yet no one in upper management bothered to drop us a card or extend their condolences. Total silence. My whole experience with PCH was not only negative, but also heartbreaking.
