Central Coast Behavioral Health - Arroyo Grande, California

Katherine Toews

Frustrating and unpleasant experience. Their telephone tree makes it confusing to figure out how to reach a live person by phone. Most of the time when I have managed to get through to the front desk, I have to leave a message. My calls don’t get returned. The doc managing my treatment left the practice and did not hand off my care to another physician, and my prescription refills abruptly stopped without warning or explanation.

But what I found much worse than these failures of communication and continuity was the customer-blaming and completely unconcerned attitude. If you can’t get through to a real person, you’re just not smart enough to navigate our telephone tree (this was the implication of the front desk staff member I talked to about it after I finally went there in person due to inability to connect with an actual person). When I said I had left several messages and never got a call back, that was met with a shrug. When I said I had been so frustrated about the inability to get through to anyone the office that I had emailed the doctor directly — twice — and he had never responded, there was another shrug, and I was told, “well, he’s a busy man.”

When I expressed distress at the fact that my doctor had basically dropped me as a patient without transferring my care to another doc, I was basically told that that was MY problem for not being “proactive.” If the medication I relied on for my mental well-being was suddenly cut off, oh well.

This organization deals in mental health and it is astonishing to me that they are so cavalier about the well-being of their patients. All I really wanted is “we’re sorry this has been frustrating; let’s see what we can do to make it right,” but that kind of empathy was non-existent. Even IF there was something that I failed to understand about how the process works (be it insurance or how to navigate the telephone tree), the answer should not be to blame the customer. As an educator, I know that you don’t blame the students for not understanding; you try again, and you try to do it better. I get the impression that they really don’t care much about their customers — I would say “patients,” but I don’t think that’s the right word, because it would imply a duty of care that is utterly lacking.

Paul Facio Heinrichs

I've had some wonderful nurse-practitioners and psychologists treat me here. The issue is that they’ve all been eventually cycled out for someone else. After a run of several excellent providers, I finally got a dud. Jose Feliberti was consistently late for our appointments (which are online)-- often 30 minutes or more. His excuses were nonsensical to the point of feeling disrespectful (he once told me he was late because of his “sore throat”; I’m not making that up). He was also next to impossible to contact.

Even when I had excellent providers, the receptionists and admin people here are either tremendously overworked or horrendous at their job (it could well be both). I’ve had several stints of months without refills due to clerical lapses on admins end. I’ve also had insurance billing issues due to errors on their part. If you call during office hours and no one’s available your call goes to a note-taking service in Texas that answers as if they’re at the office. I can remember pleading with these people, at 2pm, mind you, about my refill lapses and being told, “hey this is just a note taking service, but I’ll pass your message on.”

If you’re on medi-cal and need medication management, I would exhaust all other options before trying here.

Danielle Andree

Id like to remain anonymous.
First off, something is very wrong. I was unexpectedly removed from Connor Vieks care. From what I heard, is odd and can’t be right about why he is gone. Myself and 5 other patients had great care with him and we did not want to stop seeing him. This needs to be under investigation. Wrongful allegations. The allegations are too odd and sound made up.

Emily Robbins

My prescription doesn't go through correctly every single month. It has to be re-filled every time after I call and leave voicemails and sometimes resort to driving to the office in person. Even THEN it doesn't get sent correctly. It's literally the same rxn every month. I cannot understand how this is such a problem.

japhet

I have been going here for about 2 years now. The actual doctors I've had (despite the turnovers) have all been wonderful. The receptionists, on the other hand, not so much. I once called almost every day for over two months to get a single prescription refilled. Every time, I was told that I would receive a callback and that my message would be delivered to the doctor. This never ended up happening. I was only able to get a refill when I actually saw my doctor, which was months after I ran out. The doctor I was seeing also confirmed that they had never received any such message from the receptionists about me needing a refill, despite me calling so frequently.

Ever since, this has been happening rather routinely, where I won't get refills for weeks/months after the fact, as well as having no communication from the staff about my prescription status. It's very difficult to navigate their phone system they have set up. I really don't like writing bad reviews, but this has been a very disappointing experience. Until this communication issue is addressed among the staff, I cannot recommend this place to anyone. In fact, I will be switching somewhere else for the sake of my own mental health.

Matt M

What an awful group of medical professionals. I like my doctor but the office staff needs to keep up. I need to contact my doctor, ask questions about my health, update some information on my prescription and I have to make a payment—I wonder how all of that is going to happen if no one picks up the phone. I have left messages and no one has gotten back to me. In the past I have even deleted reviews due to improving service—but now that they have let go of my previously stellar physician, without warning and service has turned to rubbish again—here’s my honest take.

V. M.

Anthony Whall has been unbelievably helpful in dealing with a very complicated case. He went above and beyond to advocate and find the care needed. I have never experienced anything but professionalism and courtesy from this office. Not sure where these random "bad customer service" reviews come from, but if you are fortunate enough to be seen by him, you are in good hands.

Frizzle Fry

They sometimes screw things up but I have never had a negative interaction with an employee they have always treated me nicely.