Lifeskills South Florida

I would NOT advise anyone to send their loved one here. They are all about taking you in as long as you have insurance and or can pay privately which is excess of $30K a month. As soon as my son's insurance notified them they were no longer paying for residential, within a few days I was told to come pick him up since they were not getting paid. He was in a wheelchair and was discharged without any Discharge Plan for after care or to discuss next level of care. Thankfully he is now in a center that actually cares about nothing else but making sure my son gets the care he needs. This place is called GRACIOUS CARE RECOVERY SOLUTIONS....They are Angels on Earth

This is a terrible cash grab rehab. This place looks good on paper but is absolutely disgusting. Quick on the trigger to 5150 clients, constant client thefts with no repercussions. Narcotics being traded across the facility. Inept therapists solely concentrated on paperwork and books that had nothing to do with therapy. Many groups consisted of unhelpful practices. Clients who broke confidentiality rules were not reprimanded. If you had cash, you were stuck.unless you leave against medical advice. Providers who paid for treatment were duped into keeping the client in treatment. Essentially therapists could say whatever they wanted and the individuals were deemed resistant to treatment or mentally unstable. PLEASE save your money or insurance and go to a different rehabilitation center.

This place is a microcosm of the shameful state of mental health care in America. It is hard to write about ‘Lifeskills’ of South Florida without evoking anger and revisiting the worst period of my life. Yet, it is my duty to do so, as objectively as possible, if it saves just one other vulnerable person. Disclaimer: I hope those reading this review can set aside their potential biases of it been written by someone who struggles with depression (and possibly bipolar disorder). I am a professional who is not a criminal, does not abuse illicit substances, and is a contributing member of society with a large capacity to care for others. Hopefully, the eloquent and objective nature of this review will convince you of the legitimacy of my experience. I was in their PHP program. My assigned therapist (who I was to see 1:1 only twice a week) was a young, smug, spindly little guy who inspired exactly zero confidence. I don’t know where he graduated from, but it’s an indictment of that educational institution. He never got to know me as an individual, never tailored sessions at all to my unique experience. It appeared the facility had one psychiatrist who served the entire population. You got to see him for EXACTLY 5 MINUTES each week while he made snap decisions on how to alter drugs that affected your brain chemistry. Sounds adequate, right? There was literally a line of patients outside his door on those days. Both the psychiatric and psychological aspects of PHP were almost negligible – the sessions were so infrequent and non-personalized that at best they make zero impact, at worst they contribute to a worsening of one’s condition. The group sessions would almost be funny if they weren’t so pathetic and useless. There were a few where you got your classic CBT/DBT workbook that you could order off of Amazon and sat in a circle with other patients. Again, there was zero personalization and it was so cookie cutter. Some examples include a cooking class and a class on how to sell pretend products. No joke. Here I am a few months removed from running international clinical trials and I’m fake selling a toy phone to a recovering addict. So, I’d show up and go through the motions while primarily being surrounded by addicts. The other patients were comprised of people with severe mental/mood disorders and/or people with dual diagnoses. Almost every class was interrupted and side-tracked by one of these people acting out. There were no like-minded professionals who were stuck in a terrible depression. Being in that environment only contributed to further deterioration of my condition. I would lay on the floor of the day room by myself and quietly cry some days, struggling with what I was going through while simultaneously feeling horribly selfish in that I couldn’t support my own mother who was dying at the time. The staff would just walk right past me. Luckily I was just well-off enough at the time to absorb the financial hit. My insurance paid out in full, and likely even overpaid. Funny how quick and efficient this place is in hitting up your payer with a multitude of repetitive claims given how incredibly passive and ineffectual they are in treating their patients. I have refrained from using staff names so the place doesn’t have cause to remove my post but there is a truly horrendous person in their leadership who views the patients as dollar signs and has blatantly ignored me for over a year. I am happy to report I am back in CA and building my life back. ‘Lifeskills’ delayed my recovery. It was a complete waste of time and money and could have easily contributed to another attempt on my life. I am still battling to get the full refund of my up-front payment. It took 20-30 emails and a roughly equivalent number of phone calls to receive a partial return. I open up this dark chapter of my life to hopeful benefit you. If you are reading this, know that you have value and things really can change. Please avoid exploitative facilities like this. I personally believe this place should be investigated and shutdown.

This facility is a sham. The staff is not informed and despite their impressive education backgrounds, they misdiagnosed my nephew who came to Lifeskills in acute schizophrenic state. They are irresponsible and condescending. Unbeknownst to them, I have a background in mental health and I was appalled when I came to visit and discovered that my nephew was not being oppositional and difficult, but was suffering from delusions and was subsequently successfully diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated at a different facility. The psychologist who treated him at Lifeskills was under the impression that dellusions can be treated with behavior therapy. I was floored. Either this man barely passed the coursework, or he just stopped caring about the patient/client and their ultimate well being. Lifeskills is not equiped to house those with serious mental health condition such as schizophrenia. However, we were never told that this was not an appropriate placement. Instead, every communication was about how difficult and oppositional my nephew was. They also refused to change his meds despite the fact that the medication he was on was clearly ineffective. NEWSFLASH to the staff of Lifeskills, when he was treated with appropriate medication, his delusions went away and he is now able to hold down 2 jobs while attending a university. He plans to study psychology in hopes of helping those so misunderstood by the general public and, it seems, by the mental health community as well. It is a shame that these "doctors and professionals" are allowed to practice without accountability. They inflict a lot of damage to their patient's and the patient's families.

I Suffer from Bipolar. Lifeskill's is a safe environment to be & get treated.The groups I attended helped me a lot as well as the therapists & staff that work there.Very pleasant to work with. Lifeskill's is the place to be with mental illness or addictions.I would love to thank select staff for all the support & patience with me. The staff & therapist's are always at point. I'm truly glad my family made a choice for me to be at Lifeskill's. Thank you again for all the support I received & got back on my feet very fast.