Reading Hospital Outpatient Behavioral Health Services

“I’ve been going here for years. I’ve been seeing Dr. Gurski for psychiatry. Since I became chronically ill in 2024, I’ve had to jump through hoops to be believed. I was prescribed Cymbalta for my chronic pain via my Tower Health PCP. His response to this and I quote was “ I don’t want you receiving medications from anybody else but me”. Now he is denying my refills for this medication. He has also been “working” to get me in with this trauma therapist for the past three times I’ve seen him. She works in the same building, but yeah, I haven’t been able to get any update about this for a year. It feels like a weird male power trip. I’m in the mental health field myself and I just keep getting red flag after red flag from this place. Now I call to see if anybody else can refill my medication and the phone line doesn’t even work.?? Don’t you think your patients deserve to know when their medication phone line is down?? Honestly, it’s So upsetting that they have to make mentally ill people jump through hoops to get treatment. I’ve seen a DBT therapist before and cognitive therapist therapist, but they were both good just not my personal fit. I can recognize when someone is both a good therapist, but not good for me. And I can call out a psychiatrist on their problematic behavior because it’s weird and creepy. Definitely not going any more you lost a client of six years”

“I can't give 5 stars because for whatever reason this place has a HIGH turnover. I've had at least 4 or 5 psychiatrists since I've been here and 3 different therapists. Which, while they were for the most part excellent therapists, it's incredibly stressful to start from scratch with a new one. In addition they recently laid off a lot of people so the remaining staff are scraped thin.”

“i've been going to this facility since before they moved into this building. they can't prove that though because all of my medical records prior to roughly 2015 were apparently lost in the move because my records were never digitized and were still physical pages. when i say this company has gone downhill, i mean it. i've been coming here for almost 20 years now, and it is nowhere near the same as it was. therapists are so overworked and understaffed that if you don't schedule at least 5 appointments every visit, you are going to wait 3 months for the next soonest appointment. this company has never had a good track record with keeping psychiatrists, either. i can't recall a time where i've had the same psychiatrist for more than 2 years before they quit or were fired. i was told several times that i need to be seen in office for a medication refill, or they won't refill it, the one time i manage to leave work early to make it to an in-person appointment, i find out that all of their psychiatrists were, for some reason, in the K Building at reading hospital instead of wellness way, which was where i EXPECTED them to be. i was told i should have checked mychart to verify the address. why the hell would i check mychart to see if you're not at the same building where you are supposed to be? this should have been clearly communicated. so once again, i scheduled another in-person appointment, and unfortunately was not let out of work on time, i was going to be 15 minutes late. i called to let them know and ask if there was absolutely anything that could be done about this, i am low on my medication, i cannot cold turkey my medication. they told me no, if i'm not there in 7 minutes, my appointment is cancelled. i have only ever missed 1 appointment, and it's because i had the wrong time written down in my phone. i have my faults, i'm not perfect. but apparently it was 7 minutes, or no medication. i work a full time job, i cannot just up and leave my job to see my psychiatrist in person. virtual has been working perfectly for years, why did they suddenly change everything that i now need to be seen in office every once in a while? if you need my vitals, i can fax them from my family doctor, who operates outside of my work schedule, but they don't want that. either way, i ended up not even bothering to show up, because a horrible accident on 222 made my ETA go from 15 minutes late, to 35 minutes late, and i didn't want to deal with the front desk's attitude to reschedule. regardless, i have also told SEVERAL different psychiatrists about my issues and what i strongly believe was a specific disorder that i will not name, my therapist has even told me for almost a decade straight that she believes i have it, but no psychiatrist i have seen has ever bothered to give me the time of day because it's a "non-billable disorder" meaning that insurance will not pay for the session. but here's this, i'm obviously not a doctor, but my friend is, and he's told me that to diagnose this disorder, you need to have a co-disorder with it because this disorder always comes in pairs. finally in october, i get this diagnosis after YEARS. i get my medical records to update my insurance only to find out, i was lied to, and the disorder is not in my chart. i also found out that a past psychiatrist has REMOVED a disorder from my chart because he firmly believed i was misdiagnosed for 23 years of my life and tells me i don't know what i'm talking about when i told him my dad and i had discussed my illnesses because they are hereditary, "but what does he know? he's only been practicing for 20+ years?" he tells me. i should have left the appointment. i have been condescended to, talked down to, treated like i don't know what i am talking about. this practice, is a DISASTER. it ran SO MUCH BETTER before they moved to wellness way, but even back then, the cracks were starting to show. i am just appalled that i put up with this for so long. medical gaslighting at its finest. do with this information what you will.”

“This place is a joke. I called to try to get an appointment because of mental issues associated with my PTSD (among other issues). Today is May 20 and they told me no appointments till July. Seriously? Apparently they think mental health issues aren't serious.”