Mercy Health - Behavioral Health Institute

“Techniques for IOP here felt like I was wasting my time and money on a 6 week program. Causal racism was brushed off every now and then as a joke. Sessions always made me feel like I'm wasting my time hearing about others issues when I really didn't care and needed to be seen. Felt like whatever I said wasn't taken seriously and eventually i just pretended I was fine to get out of there sooner. Never liked it in patient and never liked it out patient. Some issues are just better to seek for a professional therapist. I recommend researching your own resources, it would be more time efficient.”

“I am editing my comment because it has been over a year since I left this place and I am still profoundly traumatized and horrified by my experience, both as a patient and a licensed clinician at the time of treatment. Above average inpatient experience. Absolutely horrific and traumatizing IOP experience due to providers, particularly Christopher Nix’s, personal bias against me, unprofessionalism, and discrimination towards patients with complex trauma and autism including accusing me of lying about experiencing trauma and questioning the validity of my professional autism diagnosis. It was to the point that my documentation includes character assignations, not clinical impressions, including stating that i was “attention seeking” and “inappropriate” without contexts and when I expressed concerns about not being heard, I was told by this man that “I want to be heard too”. I was also repeatedly reminded about how “angry” and “resistant” I was and asked by Mr. Nix if I “only came (to IOP) to trauma dump”. There was absolutely no consideration of the situation that led me to seek services and the conditions that would have led to such resistance and extreme emotional regulation issues, not withstanding the additional context of decades of unsupported autism. To Mr Nix and most of the other providers here, I was only viewed in the context of a highly stigmatized diagnosis that is commonly given to autistic women. Even when a comprehensive autism evaluation was presented to show that this snap judgement was completely inappropriate, these staff who knew me for maybe a week felt that they had enough information to uphold this incredibly inflammatory diagnosis and used this impression of me to refuse to acknowledge my concerns or calls to the quality control director. The most concerning part of all this is that the providers all claim to be trauma informed and practice crisis intervention, yet the discrimination I experienced shows that many of these crisis situations were manufactured and anyone who did not completely comply or pushed back against the very rudimentary CBT techniques was punished. In addition to my experiences patients were repeatedly shut down when trying to process things that the staff deemed too uncomfortable or disruptive to the group, many people suddenly disappeared, and any push back against the techniques used by the therapists was weaponized against the patient. This was by far one of the most traumatizing mental health experiences I’ve ever had and the way in which I was treated was nothing short of abusive. What is even more infuriating is that when I tried to raise these concerns using the appropriate channels I was ignored, most likely due to the diagnosis I was given during a crisis initiated by another abusive therapist that was subjected to a board investigation and is no longer licensed. This program and the abuse and discrimination that exists here needs to be investigated by the department of health and human services and the department of civil rights and I personally filed a complaint to HHS, which again was ignored, likely due to the diagnosis that was weaponized against me. I do however want to shout out the nurses in inpatient were and Lindsay the activity therapist. They were the positives during this horrific experience.”

“If I could leave zero stars I would ! As someone who has worked in healthcare I am fully aware how draining it can be but I also know in no situation should you be rude or act annoyed with/at a patient or their family. the nurse or nurse aide tessa has been rude and lacked empathy anytime I have called the facility. this place is actually a joke I went into the ED where a family member had been taken and they informed me they were moved upstairs and gave me a number to call. I called the number to which they got shitty with me stating " I can not confirm or deny the person was moved up here " after I was told from the ED they had been. then when I was added to the medical release form they still did not want to tell me anything. everytime I called the unit they would tell me the patient was asleep even though I knew they were not (they had just gotten off the phone with my brother) when I called them out for that (not rudely) they were rude and would place me on hold for 20+ minutes. the nurses kept telling me for 4 days straight that the patient would be released the next day and never was. They have given me the run around for 4 days with no actual answers and then continue getting shitty with me when they continue telling me things and they not being true. the staff apparently has severe communication issues and I am stuck talking to incompetent and rude nurses and cant even talk to a doctor. the only good thing I have to say about this place is that Reagan was pleasant , informative , empathetic , and actually wanted to help figure out what was actually going on.”

“the IOP here greatly improved my quality of life and ability to function on a day-to-day basis. I'm eternally grateful that the staff took the time to diagnose and treat my anxiety with the respect and patience that it required. i only wish that other practices would enact this level of professionalism, because finding a follow-up/maintenance of the same kind has been downright impossible.”