SummitRidge

I voluntarily attended 2 days of PHP as an adult earlier this year. I reflected for a long time before deciding to post a review. The experience was wholly negative. My intake appointment took much longer than it was supposed to, and gave me much less information than I needed. I asked for a schedule of a typical day and the question was dodged. I asked if my insurance would cover my time there, to which they implied that it would, but never gave me a firm answer. I decided to give the program a shot anyway because I was extremely depressed and feeling suicidal.SummitRidge Athens is severely understaffed and disorganized. Partial hospitalization days are supposed to include 5 hours of therapeutic interactions, largely with a group, minus a half-hour break to eat a packed lunch in the facility. My first day, roughly half of that time included ANY interaction between the staff and the very small group, including everyone individually having to have a ~15 minute virtual appointment with a brusque psychiatrist.The group therapy itself was disappointing. I have been in individual therapy for many years, and to be honest I didn't expect the therapy itself to do much for me, and of course I don't blame SummitRidge for that. I did, however, expect that the format of the therapy would encourage members of the group to talk amongst each other. Talking to other people who were struggling was the main draw to me. Instead, the format mostly involved the therapist reading off a generic worksheet about a random topic. The rest of us were free to chime in, but not especially encouraged to - and as someone with social anxiety, that made it really hard to feel welcome to participate. Brief conversations that did happen occurred between the therapist and one client, and it didn't feel like the therapist tried to facilitate conversations amongst the group or between members.This isn't especially surprising, because the therapist was ALSO the manager of the whole practice, AND responsible for answering the phone, so of course she was extremely distracted. There was also a separate adolescent group which I believe she was theoretically also in charge of. Other than the virtual psychiatrist, I only ever interacted with this one therapist.I assumed perhaps the first day had been an anomaly. However, the second day was even worse. The other two group members did not show up (and I do not blame them). I was the only one there, and I guess the therapist/manager took the opportunity to try to catch up on other things. I was in a room by myself for 3.5 of the 5 hrs. I listened to music on my earbuds and eventually fell asleep.The adolescent group was never occupied, either. They seemingly spent most of their time making bead bracelets and giving them to the adult clients, while being neglected by any staff. The second day, the staff turned on the movie "Turning Red" for them to watch in lieu of any form of therapy.I left them a voicemail that evening to let them know I wouldn't be coming back. Discouraged by mental health treatment in general, I wasn't sure I would bother leaving a review. I've finally decided to after months of receiving threatening letters. As it turned out, my insurance would have normally covered it but only after I met a very high deductible, which in my understanding is something SummitRidge should have been legally liable to communicate to me, yet they did not. I owed over $1,000 for two 5-hour days which came out to maybe 4 hours of interacting with staff, very little of which was interactive treatment. I have been paying as much as I can on the bill (given that I am unemployed due to my mental health issues), yet the invoices have continued to come with ever-more threatening language. Today I received my "final notice before further action" about the remaining $400, and that's what convinced me to write this review. This is, in fact, the only negative review I've ever written. I recommend SummitRidge for no one of any age.

Highly recommend the outpatient service for adolescents. The staff are well informed and invested in their patients. This location provides a safe place for mental health healing through group sessions.

I recently did an intensive outpatient program here and it was positive and habit changing. I m using skills I learned there in every day to regulate my emotions. I m in a much happier place! I recommend if you want somewhere safe to go to work on your healing process.