Psychiatric Services of Southern Illinois

“I was a patient of Dr Jeffrey Chalfant since 2009 up until 2020. He did help me out by giving me medicine that worked for me. I lived right down the road to him, before I had a job, so it was easier to show up to my appointments; especially since I have anxiety about driving. We then had to move all the way to another town that was an hour away. Driving there by myself was scary and since I didn't have a phone with a gps it was nerve wrecking so it made me really tired. Around this time my medicine stopped working where my depression was so bad that I couldn't get out of bed, not even for my job. He gave me an intermittent leave for my job, which was nice of him. But it also hard to go to my appointments. He gave me two or three new medicines, but they didn't help. He then said, " I don't know what else to give you." I was shocked at what he had just said to me. I also remember a staff member who wrote me the wrong week day and the date of the month. I went on the day of the month and showed her the card she wrote the appointment on. Then she said do you want me to throw away that card and stupidly enough I said sure. He saw me that day but the staff member counted as a no show to cover her mistake. One day they made an appointment for me to go see him. I thought it was going to be another regular appointment. When I got there the had me pay for my overdo co-pay. That is when they said he would not see me anymore and gave me a new list of doctors. I was TRICKED by them! They said I had too many no shows and they warned me about it. Now I admit I did cancel my appointments on the day of the appointment, but they never warned me about him just throwing me away like that. I was so mad that I just sat in the chair of the waiting room. The staff yelled, "He is not going to see you!",but I yelled," I'll wait!". I just wanted an explanation from him. He never came out like he usually does for his patients. He made his staff come out instead. I only stayed for five minutes. I just left after that crying all the way home. What him and his staff did was rotten and I hope he never does that again to anyone else.”

“The lack of professionalism from this place is astounded. The “doctor” had my wife running out in tears 15 minutes into the appointment. Support staff is condescending and rude”

“This review is to be hopefully helpful to not only new, current, and future patients but also the office in general too. On the day before your appointment proactively call the office because they will show you no mercy in canceling your appointment if you don't respond to their phone call. For some reason my brain decided not to make this connection. Anyhow just calling proactively solves the issue and makes it so you don't have to worry about missing the phone call from the office and have to wait an additional 2+ months for another appointment. This goes for the office too. I know your process seems simple but I can't recall many offices that operate that if you don't call back the day before then your appointment gets canceled. I think it would be helpful to say "You don't have to wait to get a call from us. Just call us the day before and tell us you'd still like your appointment for the next day." Could save you a lot of work calling each person if your patients proactively call you”

“Dr Chalfant added a medication that helped. But I wonder if he is only interested in making money. I had a telephonic appointment due to the Covid pandemic. The office called two minutes ahead of time but I missed the call. I returned the call literally within 2 minutes and was told that I would have to reschedule as the doctor had moved on to the next client. At the next appointment I addressed the issue with the doctor and he told me that he wasn't going to discuss it with me and that I could find another doctor if I didn't like it. I think this is unreasonable and shows a lack of respect. Be prepared because they routinely call ahead of the scheduled appointment time and they will move on if you don't answer when they call.”