Pacific Coast Psychiatric

Dec 2023

PCPA was okay (not great) before Lifestance took over. Since Lifestance took over, it has been a nightmare. First, they transitioned portals to a portal that is much worse than the one that PCPA has used. When you try to send a message in the new portal, all paragraphs are removed so that your message just becomes one big blob, essentially unreadable. This portal is the main way to contact your provider, the billing department, and the front desk, so it is distressing that they have not put the appropriate code in place to support formatting, and instead your messages become unreadable (as well as the messages you receive.) In the portal, the billing tab only says "Balance Due" and doesn't provide an account ledger. The billing tab also includes a list of biweekly bills. First of all, this is a huge issue because of the lack of transperancy. I have noticed that, over the past couple of months, almost every bill that I have received from Lifestance has been incorrect according to my insurance EOB. I have tried to message them, and it's about a 50/50 chance that they actually respond to your message. They say you can request a superbill at any time, but how does that help when messages itself only get responded to 50% of the time and the messaging system is awful to use, making messages unreadable? In addition, if you are trying to find the portal from the main PCPA website, good luck! There is a message at the top that briefly details the transition, which happened back in June 2023. If you click the link in that message, it takes you to a broken webpage. If you try to navigate to Current Patients and then Patient Portal, you will be directed to the OLD portal (from before June 2023!) that no longer works. The only way to actually find the portal is to go to Current Patients, and then AMD Patient Portal Transition, and then click on the link under "How can I access the AMD Patient Portal?". The fact that there are so many broken links on the website, especially to something as important as the patient portal, is egregious, especially for a company of this size. After receiving yet another incorrect bill (when they are trying to charge me $231.29 when I should actually have a credit of $40.39 on my account), I have tried to call the billing department and have been on hold for over 35 minutes so far with no indication of how long I should expect to be on hold. To help with the process, I took the time to create my own account ledger from my end to support the billing department in billing correctly. Why is it my responsibility as a patient to put together this ledger, rather than the billing department? How many people are being billed incorrectly because they don't have the knowledge or time to put together their own ledgers and advocate for themselves against the illicit practicies of Lifestance? I am at the point where this situation has caused me so much stress that I believe I am going to need to leave both my therapist and psychiatrist, after being with them for 3+ years, because I am getting panic attacks from having to deal with Lifestance. Maybe it's their strategy to cause so much mental strain on their patients that their patients need extra therapy just to deal with it. Or, what is more likely, they are simply incompetent and are too lazy/cheap to put in the resources to run a functional business. Whatever the situation, run far, far away! Even if you can find a good provider here, it is not worth having to deal with Lifestance's horrible system infrastructure and inept billing practices. Edit: I finally got on the phone with them. I talked to them on the phone and they said they would send me a superbill -- but it has to be by US mail due to HIPPA. They said it could take 2-3 weeks to receive it! That is definitely not a replacement for having an easily accessible account ledger. What's worse, though: I found out why they seem to think I have an outstanding balance. If you have insurance, your insurance provider negotiates reduced rates with in-network provider

Sep 2023

Lifestance has a nice website for learning about their services, taking requests, everything EXCEPT cancelling an appointment or explaining insurance coverage. It's definitely a scam, they are the only group I tried that doesn't help you with insurance. Every other group I tried would confirm BEFORE the appointment that I was not covered and then check whether I wanted to keep the appointment or not. Lifestance bulldozed me with an appointment that was impossible to cancel.

Aug 2023

Their system sucks! I tried to cancel my appointment before the period where they would charge you for late cancellation but no one got back to me. Tried the phone number, but email and portal. Tried again for my 2nd appointment same situation. Now they have the audacity to charge me. I went to check them out since their website said they have therapist for adhd/learning disability testing but I find out after I booked my appointment, it's not for diagnosis but only if you already been diagnosed with learning disability. Do not go there!!! Don't even try to inquire about them