Khindrid Sol

Review of Lucida Treatment Center

As much as I will say Lucida has helped me, I will...

As much as I will say Lucida has helped me, I will also say they hindered me as much. Especially on the aftermath of the whole process. I still have not received any records and bills from my stay about a month ago. They also didn't take my insurance which they lied about.

During my stay here I was appalled by several specific occasions that happened.

After being there for two weeks, the moods group only therapist for about 15 women, suddenly "quit." She was an amazing, caring therapist and we were all shocked by her sudden disappearance. It was known that she had a discussion with the clinical director Jim and yelling had been heard. (Mind you all the upper management and techs are recovering addicts..some only a one or two years sober). Doreen, the therapist offered to transition all of us to another therapist, and put in her two weeks. Rumor had it that Jim told her to leave immediately and she was gone the next day. We were aware of this only the day after where there was absolutely no explanation of her absence. When a majority of us were very upset because we felt like our recovery would be
hindered (which it was), they told us that this was real life and that it was a therapeutic opportunity to work through our abandonment issues, which it was, but was absolutely unexceptable. The trust in the clinical staff went down as we felt our needs weren't being heard and felt abandoned.

My next complaint would be about the head nurse Ann and the medical team. According to their 'policy' a client is supposed to see the main psychiatrist once a week or (a nurse practitioner). I stayed for six weeks and saw the official psychiatrist on my fourth week. I followed their policy and put in several notes to see the official doctor but was not scheduled. When I told Ann this, she blamed the doctor and said something along the lines of "wow I thought I put you on his schedule, it's unbelievable how poor people's work ethic is around here." As a client who payed over 16,000 for my treatment, and the amount of money they got from my insurance company, I was appalled by how I was treated. The medical side of Lucida which Ann was head of, was unorganized and extremely unprofessional. One time a nurse gave me 1 mg of kholopin when I was prescribed .5 mg. I was overmedicated and barely remember that whole day. Another time, I was in the medical room about to get a skin check and a girl came in with her arm bleeding. The nurse looked at it and simply did nothing or said anything. As a concerned onlooker, I asked why they weren't helping her. One nurse, Latisha, assured me that she had seen plenty of women slit their wrists in a prison setting and hadn't bleed out. She said the client would be fine and if I could hurry up with my skin check.

I will say Marline was the only upper management staff that I felt like heard our needs and treated us like clients. She also cooked us a nice meal on Easter and made pad Thai for everyone. Otherwise we had to cook all of our meals. As someone that went to Lucida for a mood disorder, eating is already stressful. In my house there was a client who had an eating disorder that I became aware of and when I told a tech, they told me they had no idea about it and still preceeded the to do nothing about. She ended up going to the hospital twice, once for dehydration because she wasn't eating or drinking and another time for a suicide attempt because our doors weren't locked and the alarm was broken on it. This was a real safety concern for everyone involved.

Speaking on safety, there was a boy who was stealing syrup from the Walgreens beside of the facility and was getting high on it for two weeks before anyone noticed or cared.

Trisha and Gigi were amazing and the community of clients there were the only reason I stayed.

Lucida could be so much better. It's unfortunate how the management, and billing team at Lucida were misleading and sly. I'm very suspicious of several possible scams that are going on here.