"Safe, Clean. Several major issues to share / be aware of."

Facility
Really nice, no complaints. Even from the defiant child that did not want to be there!

Therapists
We thought highly of our two therapists (group and individual). They clearly cared, although communication was guarded. Lots of flowery talk and positivity (during updates), but in the end we realized they were minimizing issues to not worry us. Which made the shock of how they abruptly chose to kick our child out that much worse.
Also, they did call CPS on us because we restrained our child prior to treatment (when throwing things through windows , etc). Turned out to be an inconvenience only. CPS lady was really annoyed her time was being wasted by the report, but I’m sure that is the right protocol. Once you get over the embarrassment, not a big deal, so don’t worry even if your kid likes to make stuff up too.

Site Program Director – Tim H
If I can fault Paradigm for anything on the treatment side, it is with Tim. He’s a younger guy (or I am old!) and I think he oversold his “experience”. Short version is Paradigm got sick of my explosive child threatening to self harm and they planned to kick our child out. (Fine, trust me, used to it by now and I get it, they can’t continue to assume the words are for shock value)
Tim calls me one Friday evening (I’m east coast) and tells me I need to be there (west coast) the NEXT morning. I find someone to take my other kids and somehow make it on a plane 8 hours from Tim's first call. I begged Tim to wait until I got there to tell my kid about being expelled. He tells me they will separate my child from the group and wait for me to come, but he will help explain because he’s an “expert” at this kind of thing.
Well, I was literally on the LA tarmac taxiing to the gate and for some reason they decided to just go ahead and break the news WITHOUT ME PRESENT. I guess to Tim I am no expert in with my own child (**heavy sarcasm**), but predictably, said child went nuclear, threatened self harm so they called cops who tackled and cuffed my 120lb tween. They stuffed my child in an ambulance and put on a 3 day “hold” at the local small hospital. I was driving in the rental car to them in Malibu when I got the call. I was that close!! Grrr.
They did have someone stay with my child at the hospital until I got there 30 minutes later, but then all the belongings were dumped in the hospital lobby and at that point they go full corporate mode (say nothing, don’t get involved, cya bye!!)
We spent 3 days in a cinderblock empty hospital room until the hold lifted. Then I guess it is some sort of law (policy?) where they would not discharge my child to me, but had to send my child on another ambulance ride to a place to determine my child was indeed NOT likely to self harm.
All said and done, Tim’s mismanagement / bad “expert” decision making cost us:
• 3 days confinement
• 2 x 20 minute hospital rides @ $4000 EACH out of pocket. NOT a typo. (Out of network on the other side of the country…who knew?)
For my child, FAFO I guess, but it was 1000% unnecessary and that is ALL on Tim. I TOLD him, but “trust me, I’m an expert” he says.
Looks like someone from Paradigm is now reading / responding to reviews so maybe they can get the feedback to Tim. He needs to know the consequences of his choices and this is my only way to share that, since Paradigm is the only medical place I’ve ever used that does NOT want to get feedback on their service. I go get for to my doc for an annual physical and I get 10 surveys. Send my kid into someone else’s care across the country and nope, no need to improve apparently.

Financials
Can’t say I was shocked because when we were on here researching for my child, another reviewer had complained AT LENGTH (but professionally) about how shady the Paradigm (Altior) Finance team was and our experience was every bit the same in the end. Really odd that I don’t see that post here anymore….
Anyway, if your house is in crisis, you probably don’t care about $$$, and I get it. But you should be aware:
1) They do a really good job getting insurance submittals and handling all that. Nestor was great. Admissions person was good too (name slips my mind now)
2) If you need to pay them up front (because you are in crisis and need an option) expecting to get reimbursed from them later when insurance pays, you WILL experience MAJOR headaches as a parting gift.
It took over 9 months to get a check back for an overpayment of < $5k. After 3 months I have in writing that they agree they owe it. But, again, consistent with what the other father had written, I must have written and called 100 times. It wasn’t until I had to threaten lawyers, CC them on emails to the regulator (DHCS) that they started to respond. Then it was always some excuse to delay it, delay it, delay it.

Recommendation
If you read this far, check out Evolve up in nearby Augora Hills. Sadly, same outcome, but treated us really, really well.

"Financial Practices"

This review is entirely about the financial practices at Paradigm/Altior. Do believe all the other reviews about the difficulty in getting your pre-payments refunded after reconciling with your insurance company. It was 5 months after discharge for all the insurance claims to be properly submitted (two claims needed to be resubmitted multiple times) and our refund processed. Paradigm did require an amount equal to our Annual Max Out of Pocket up front since the stay included January 1.

The care our child received was good. We felt they were safe and well cared for. If the child is willing to do the work, the program can be helpful.

"We got surprised with an 8K+ bill…"

We got surprised with an 8K+ bill after I paid my co-insurance. Despite being in very close touch weekly about insurance approvals. And each week, they would ask if I would keep my child in of insurance didn’t cover. I said no. They claimed it took 13 days after my child left to reconcile with my insurance and threatened collections right away.
On top of that, they added stress to my child’s recovery with the fear they would get discharged if insurance and parent did not pay. I’m now in process of hiring an attorney to address this. What a pain, by the way- no negotiation of that surprise bill or offer to reduce, make payments. Just straight up we are sending to collections. They need to update their skills and try not to add more issues.

"Herpes treatment"

I want to thank Dr Balogun Historical Herbs for curing me with his natural roots mixture I'm so excited and I strongly recommend his product for herpes cure

"Poor financial practices- financial exploitation"

One of the worst things about the facility is they make you pre-pay the entire stay upfront before insurance will pay. At $2000 a day this is no small amount When you consider a 6 week stay. When they want to be paid they are very attentive and will return all phone calls and emails. Now picture after you’ve gone through two years of insurance wrangling especially during Covid and they get paid with US treasury checks for more than the full amount of the stay. Two months later you don’t have a refund! And you know those US treasury checks did not bounce!! And during the whole insurance review process they are not helpful at all. They do not return most emails. They will not let you know the claim number. It takes at least five tries to get them to even cooperate. Honestly it ruins the whole experience— no one has money to play games like this.

2 months after they were paid they have not returned the money. Go read the better business bureau complaints- this is a common paradigm practice.

We will continue to step through the process- complaints with bb, attorney general- but this should not be necessary if the business would act in good faith

"PARADIGM IS GREAT"

PARADIGM IS GREAT! They helped me a lot. Definitely recommend. Lots of love to all the staff including Drew, Vic, Melody, Diana, Christina, Dunya, Tomi, Alex, Christopher, Susy, and more. Paradigm has the most fantastic staff of any organization ever. Great FOOD! Thanks to the wonderful chefs, Doug and Patro. Lifesaving food. Can't forget cherry on top of it all: Lulu the precious therapy dog. Miss you Lulu! I'll always remember my time in CHER's house of treatment fondly.

"Shoddy Financial Methods"

It is a difficult decision to admit yourself or a loved one into residential treatment. There are so many factors to consider. We admitted our 15-year-old to Paradigm in Malibu in May of 2021 and our teenager was discharged in June. I will break my review into three parts: treatment, facility, financial experience.

The most difficult part was wondering if Paradigm was capable of helping our child. There were two benefits our child received while at Paradigm; containment from self-harming and getting on the right medicine that has helped. It remains to be determined if another program would have helped in the same way. The therapists that worked with our kid were just ok. The primary therapist was better at talking than listening. Our family therapist was very sweet but not strong enough to manage our teenager. Our teenager benefited from the group therapy at Paradigm.

One thing I would like to caution parents about is the whole “troubled teen” industry that Paradigm is a part of. Many of the teens that go through Paradigm do not come home. Many discharge to therapeutic boarding schools or wilderness programs. Sometimes this happens after hours and they come to Paradigm to take unknowing kids away to their next program. This was very traumatic for our child to witness. Indeed, Paradigm very strongly recommended that our teenager go to a therapeutic boarding school. We listened to our instincts, though, and brought our kid home and did a few weeks at PHP. This was six months ago. Our child is happy, back at in-person public school, playing competitive sports, getting excellent grades, spending time with friends, and thriving with individual and group therapy sessions.

Next, the property/facilities. I did not personally visit Paradigm since my husband admitted and discharged our child. And he was not allowed into the building due to Covid protocol. Our teenager seemed to be comfortable at the facility, enjoyed many of the activities, and liked the food that was provided.

Finally, I would like to address the horrific financial and accounting practices at Paradigm. As if having a child in residential treatment isn’t hard enough, the shoddy financial methods at Paradigm will absolutely bring you to your knees. Paradigm required us to pre-pay for services and insisted they would submit claims to both of our insurance companies. Paradigm promised to refund our money based on insurance reimbursement. Prior to admitting our child, we had read a few reviews complaining about the financial process at Paradigm. When we brought this up before admitting our teenager, the financial manager, Debora Garcia, swore up and down that these complaints had been addressed, there was a new owner of the company, and she “gave us her word” that all financial matters would be above board and dealt with in a timely manner. Let me say, that this was a complete and utter lie. Once Paradigm collected our money, we never heard from them. If we had a question about insurance claims or payments, we would have to call and email a minimum of 3 times to get a response. Most of the times we received a response, it was because we begged, pleaded, and sometimes even threatened in an effort to get them to respond to our calls or emails. Getting our refund has been a miserable process. Paradigm has come up with constant smoke and mirrors as to why they can not provide the correct refund. We have received only a partial refund and are in an ugly disagreement with Paradigm regarding the remainder of the refund that is due. The bottom line: if you are concerned about the money and cost of Paradigm, and I mean A LOT of money, do not choose Paradigm. There are plenty of other residential programs to choose from.

"DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD HERE IF YOU CARE…"

DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD HERE IF YOU CARE ABOUT THEM! This place is a joke. It is a money grabber, and they do not care about your child. All the patients had to go to other programs afterward because they didn’t get better but WORSE. All the therapists are not certified (except one) and are there to complete their hours. They don’t care about the children but rather talk bad behind them and all their fellow patient’s backs in group chats between staff. I have seen proof with my own eyes that they made fun of my child(what they wear and dress) in a group chat. The main person, whose name starts with a T, is never available to talk or is even on-site whenever there is a problem or just in general. The CAs are not qualified to help children who, at times, are mentally unstable. Before sending my child, they said the kids would be having issues with depression and anxiety, and that’s all. They said no hard drug addicts or ‘bad kids.’ They also said there would be a certified teacher for school. The teacher was not a school teacher but rather just a CA who was promoted and called a teacher. The teacher had an IQ of 5, and almost all the kids were smarter, and he couldn’t help them with their work. While my child was there, three girls tried to kill themselves, and another one tried to overdose on pills because they weren’t watching them closely, so they hid their meds and took them all at once and had to go to the hospital. There were also fights that happened on occasion. Multiple kids had come from psych wards when not ready to leave them and was a harm to themselves and others. Also, another time a patient stopped breathing because of an allergic reaction which they told the CAs about beforehand but didn’t take seriously and thought they were trying to get out of an activity. The person was lying on the floor for 5-10 minutes, not breathing and unconscious, before the CAs called help. These situations are a regular occurrence where they don’t know how to act or handle the kids. The list goes on. The night staff rarely check in on the kids, and when they do, they intentionally shine a light in their face, so they know they were checked on and wake up (They are supposed to be check in on every 15 mins. They check about 1-2 hours). One time my child woke up, and the night staff was asleep in a therapy room out cold when they needed help and had to go back to sleep when in pain. They promise individual therapy every day except for weekends which is a total lie. My child would get 2-4 sessions a week, where kids who acted out got multiple sessions a day. Group sessions are useless to these kids because everything they say is written down and talked about by the staff. CONFIDENTIALITY is NOT a thing. All the staff see and has everything written in individual therapy sessions. Also, all the tests, including the MMPI and DAS, are included in these files. The CAs look through the files and talk and laugh about some of the problems these children are experiencing when they should be trying to help. They even told another patient something very personal that was brought up in an individual therapy session about a different patient, which is totally against the law and HIPAA. I would give this no stars if that was an option. I have to say there are two positives about Paradigm. The food and the family therapist. EVERYTHING ELSE SUCKS! I write this not to bash them but rather to save you the trauma and bad experiences my family and many others have endured. If you take away anything from this, DONT SEND YOUR CHILD HERE IF YOU LOVE/CARE ABOUT THEM.

"Words cannot express how thankful we…"

Words cannot express how thankful we are for the treatment our daughter received at Paradigm. Having to seek residential treatment for our daughter was one of the toughest decisions we ever had to make. Once we knew it was our only choice, we were so thankful for the compassion and guidance we all received. From the intake process to treatment and post-treatment every person we interacted with was amazing. Each person who worked with our daughter was not only the best (we have worked with), but went above and beyond to provide the individualized care our daughter desperately needed. Each Paradigm therapist, doctor, teacher and employee is sincerely committed to the patients' well being. In addition to her individualized care, our entire family received the support, therapy and education needed to help our daughter. Moreover, Paradigm continues to support us post-residential care.

"Fantasfic!"

Fantastic team. Comprehensive care. Life changing. Highly recommend!