A.J. Moss
1/5
If I could give Hillcrest 5 negative stars, I would, as they have most certainly earned it.
I had a child spend roughly 3 weeks at Hillcrest. Over this time, I found the clinicians to be capable; however, Hillcrest failed on the single most important factor in my opinion for selecting a treatment center, that factor being TRUST.
My child was suffering from depression and suicidal ideation. At intake with Hillcrest, I explained to multiple representatives of Hillcrest multiple times that we had a long-standing, successful relationship with another doctor that I wanted to be integrated into a collaborative process with Hillcrest that would provide for a bilateral exchange of information between the identified Dr. and Hillcrest. I explained to Hillcrest that if this arrangement was not agreed to, we would not be selecting them, but I was reassured multiple times from different people at Hillcrest that this arrangement was suitable, no doubt to get us to engage Hillcrest. We therefore arranged to fly out to Los Angeles to move my child to Hillcrest.
After roughly 2 difficult weeks of trying to get Hillcrest to do what they agreed to do at intake, namely permit the bilateral exchange of information between my doctor and Hillcrest, they never did so. For reasons that I cannot go into here, having this Dr. plugged into the proposed collaborative arrangement was critical to my child’s safety. Hillcrest failed to keep its word to me that was repeatedly given to me at intake. We therefore had to incur the additional expense and aggravation of having to fly out to California a second time and move my son to another facility, Newport Academy, one FAR MORE TRUSTWORTHY than Hillcrest and one that agreed to and implemented the bilateral exchange of information between Newport Academy and my doctor.
Unsurprisingly, one thing Hillcrest was very good at was reaching out to seek payment. Hillcrest was told repeatedly that if the agreed to bilateral exchange of information was not provided, payment similarly would not be provided. Nevertheless, following the early discharge of my child from Hillcrest at my direction (not Hillcrest's), Hillcrest charged my account the full amount for treatment, all this despite the fact that I never executed the credit card authorization form for this charge. I disputed this charge, not because I did not find the clinicians to be capable, but because I found the institution as a whole to be untrustworthy. After disputing the charge, Hillcrest threatened me by stating essentially that should my dispute of the unauthorized charge be granted by my credit card holder, Hillcrest would charge me again at the full undiscounted rate, essentially blackmailing me into accepting services provided by Hillcrest that were not provided in the manner agreed to at intake. So I ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars for services that were not what was promised to me.
Without trust, there can be no meaningful treatment. Hillcrest was completely untrustworthy. Be warned. I wish I had seen a review like this before taking my child to Hillcrest, as I would never have taken my child there had I seen such a review, and had Hillcrest simply kept their word, this review would be unnecessary.