I've been struggling lately to a point I've been crying nonstop the last two days, been struggling for a few extra. I'm at a point where I'm trying to find a decent place that won't just traumatize me more. Thing is, I'm also like 99 percent sure I'm heavy on the neurodivergent spectrum somewhere (never got properly tested since I was like 5 but I was like 3 symptoms off from having autism then), and having.. Something I enjoy actually able to do there would also count big time to helping me. I don't wanna sit on my butt the whole time with nothing to distract me (not a big reader, and I don't wanna color a coloring page). Id be in the adult section when admitted somewhere and I know some places just.. Don't help by having anything to my interests. I'm a digital artist, gamer, baker, and those are what helps me. I just want to find a hopefully peaceful enough place I won't want to lose it more that'll let me stay in my non string having pj's. I dunno. If it counts, my insurance is bcbs community health plan. Anythings appreciated because I'm just waiting for my boss to get back to me before I just go and check myself in somewhere.
Thank you. Been holding off because i was worried about my job, but I think even my boss has been catching on cause he finally replied just urging me to go and I'd have my job. Hopefully they take me this time. 🥲
Are you eligible for FMLA? This would ensure your job is protected. Also, have you considered intensive outpatient services? It’s pretty difficult to get admitted as an inpatient unless you are a risk to yourself or others (if you are - then inpatient is designed to keep you safe). Intensive outpatient I usually 6-8 hours a day for a specified period (2 weeks, etc) and is a structured program that I have found to be helpful. Best of luck to you.
I've been to an outpatient program before, but it was only like 2 hours every few days for like, three months. But didn't do much.
So I'm not sure where I'd start 🥲
Well that’s a relief. Cool boss.
I’ve been through some rough emotional times. Definitely helps to count your blessings.
I am a licensed therapist in the area with a diverse work history, including inpatient. This is NOT medical advice, simply some thoughts and insights.
As many have already said, inpatient units will admit for imminent danger: active SI/HI/psychosis that doesn’t allow someone to recognize safety concerns etc. This will be short-term (typically 3-5 days but could be more or less) acute stabilization with the expectation that they start services that allow for a safe discharge, and then the real work happens on an outpatient level. In my personal and professional opinion: Mercy St. Louis is my best recommendation. Do not go to CenterPointe. IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR SAFETY OR THAT OF THOSE AROUND YOU PLEASE CALL 911 OR GO TO THE NEAREST ED.
If you do not meet criteria for inpatient admission (again, the key words are imminent danger), outpatient services may be best for you, including formal assessment to determine neurodivergence. Assessment can be done by a range of professionals, it depends on what you are looking for. A licensed therapist can assess you enough to provide a therapeutic treatment plan to address symptoms. If you are seeking medication (if you’re talking ADHD rather than ASD), a psychiatrist will need to see you to determine what is appropriate. If you are having concurrent mood symptoms, they will likely want to stabilize those first. As frustrating as this may feel, please know that the process is meant to prioritize safety (depressive symptoms are more likely to be harmful to us than ADHD symptoms etc.). Avoid anything associated with CenterPointe to include Psychiatric Care Consultants.
I say this with love and frustration not aimed at you, but rather the system: there is no reason you should be on a year-long waitlist for outpatient therapy, unless you are looking for something very specialized. While not all therapists are created the same, I firmly believe that the vast majority will benefit more from seeing ANY therapist than not seeing one at all. Some local practices that accept commercial insurance with relatively low waitlists: LifeStance Health, Ellie, Sandhill.
Intensive outpatient (IOP) can be helpful, but insurance may or may not cover. If you call the programs themselves, they can likely tell you if it’s covered or not. Think of it as a jumpstart to any outpatient services you set up; you need to have a therapist and/or psychiatrist set up in the meantime, but this can launch you forward in the treatment process. Some have mentioned partial hospitalization (PHP), it isn’t much of a thing in the StL area as far as I’m aware.
If you are looking for longer term, residential type treatment: call the number on your insurance card. That is a whole process that can be worthwhile but can also be difficult to navigate.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of recommendations but it’s what first comes to mind. I agree about calling BHR as needed; they can even send someone to talk to you in person to provide support. Save that number for sure. Best wishes.
Wow this is great. I would really love to know why you’re very consistent about avoiding CenterPointe. Got weird vibes when looking up that place at one point and felt like I should avoid it or get sucked into a financial trap of some kind.
Got weird vibes when looking up that place at one point
It's horrible. I work with clients who have both MH/addiction and we've had to refer people there.. they come back with the craziest fuckin stories of how much of a shit show it is.
They basically throw medications at patients, they're a pill farm.
The way they treat/diagnose patients is just straight unethical.
My mom recently retired from there, she was a nurse there for like 30 years or something. It used to be an amazing facility that actually helped people, but the company has since traded hands so many times..
Several of the Malik's (who basically run the place now) have DOZENS of lawsuits against them for scamming insurance and other unethical practices..
It is such a complete shit show. It's hard to fully describe everything because I'm still traumatized by that hell hole. There was a lady having other medical issues who clearly needed to go to a regular hospital, but they just accused her of being dramatic and drugged her up more. There was a lady detoxing who was so sick and weak that she couldn't even feed herself, so fellow patients stepped in to help her while the staff ignored her. A nurse berated me for forgetting the name of the nurse assigned to me that day (when it changed from day to day). The daily pep-talk group leader guy berated people who didn't make their beds, which is bullshit given the rooms were crusted with filth.
The doctor looked at my insurance information and said "oh you have a good plan" and changed my medication to an expensive newer drug that had no generic (which insurance didn't end up covering and would have cost me $1k a month, so I called and asked for an alternative and the doctor never called back).
When I was there a guy snuck fentanyl in by sewing pills into the lining of his hat and overdosed in his room when we were lining up for dinner. His roommate tried telling the staff that he thought something was wrong but they all brushed it off because they had the guy so zooted on seroquel and god knows what else that they didn’t expect him to be conscious or coherent to begin with. The roommate had to be the one to check and realize he wasn’t breathing and barely had a pulse. Thankfully he survived but instead of acknowledging how traumatizing that was for all of us they acted like we all personally brought in drugs and fed them to him.
Holy crap that's horrific.
They were such assholes about drugs and addiction, even to the people who weren't there for anything addiction related. They acted like we were all criminals. Yet they fucked around with prescription drugs like we were rats in an experiment.
I've had the opposite at CenterPointe, all but one admission have been great. What was your mom's name if you don't mind me asking? I very well may have known her, was there quite a bit for a couple years.
CenterPointe is hell. Got tossed their way after a suicide attempt when I was 17 and can unfortunately say I’m an alumni of their grippy sock club. It was bad, dude. I tell anyone who will listen to not touch that place with a mile-long pole. And I was only there for about 5 days.
Three weeks after I got out, I was back in the ER after another suicide attempt. My parents fought the hospital and insurance company tooth and nail to not get me sent back to that place, and succeeded. I went somewhere else. Looking back, I’m so glad they had my back there. I don’t know where I’d be if I’d just been shoved back into that building.
Even their outpatient is bad. Their psychiatrists are jokes. I was prescribed my first psychotropic drugs there. What’d they put me on? For my first-ever prescription medication experience? A FUCKING COMBINATION OF WELLBUTRIN AND PROZAC. THOSE MEDICATIONS DO NOT GO TOGETHER. I FOUND OUT THE HARD WAY AFTER BLACKING OUT FOR THREE DAYS. I will never forgive that place for fucking me up as badly as they did.
So to my understanding, it’s not necessarily unheard of to combine the two — just very rare, and usually only after other SSRI/mood stabilizer combos have been exhausted. They interact a lot. And the side effects of the two together are horrific if you’re at all sensitive to medication. The risks, in a lot of cases, outweigh any benefits you might see on them together.
I started in Centerpointe’s outpatient care — that’s where I got that combo prescribed after never having taken psychotropic meds before. I’d already been struggling with suicidal ideation, and the combination exacerbated it for me. I got serotonin syndrome and blacked out for three days, when I woke up I was in a hospital bed after trying to take my own life via overdose with no memory of doing so. I was told that I had a 2 minute 5 second seizure and would have died if a friend hadn’t thought it was weird that I wasn’t at school and texted me - I apparently responded with some gibberish that didn’t make sense and they phoned the police to be safe.
That was my first attempt. After being discharged from the hospital, I was placed in Centerpointe’s inpatient care. The doctor who saw me there put me on another SSRI/mood stabilizer combo. Zoloft, and I forgot what the other one was. But they didn’t delay me starting the new prescription, even though it’d been literal days since I swallowed two half-full bottles of prozac and Wellbutrin. My brain felt so uncomfortable. It’s hard to describe. It only took three weeks after my first attempt for me to be back in the hospital. I felt like I was going insane, and centerpointe’s response was again to just stop the prescription combination altogether with no tapering and immediately have me taking a different set of pills. Everything with them felt rushed, and like they were just throwing meds at me Willy-nilly to see what stuck. Definitely felt like they didn’t care about me whatsoever, and there were absolutely no warnings about what side effects I should be watching for. My family had no experience with psychotropic medication so we were all in the dark and just terrified of what was going on.
Fuck centerointe.
I can attest to them being legitimately the worst lol
There’s so much I’m probably forgetting, but the staff there are just so bizarre and uncaring that it’s insane. We were forced into our rooms for several hours because a man stole the coffee creamer for starters. I also remember the doctor there asking me if I was “absolutely sure” my experience with csa was real and that I wasn’t being dramatic about it. She also told me that because of my ocd symptoms I told her about (which she should be able to recognize as someone who works in a psych ward,) I shouldn’t be around children. I think she told another patient that she must be suicidal because she’s “obese” and that she would be loved if she lost weight? Several of us told the other staff that we don’t ever want to speak to her again and they told us to just deal with it lmao.
The medical neglect is mind blowing too. One man snuck in drugs (I wasn’t sure what it was exactly) and overdosed which is bizarre to me with how deeply invasive their strip searches were for the women. He overdosed literally not even a day after being there. There was an older woman in our ward who we all had been insisting that she needed proper medical care and should be taken to a doctor; naturally they ignored us until she had a stroke in her room. I also remember telling one the many nps they cycled me through that the mix of heavy antipsychotics they gave me (they felt the need to take me off the one I was originally on that worked just fine) had me feeling so drugged that I could barely keep my eyes open or understand what was happening around me and she just told me that this was the best place to sleep and basically ignored all of my complaints after that.
I don’t want to seem like I’m just here to vent out all my problems with that place, I just really want to make sure no one puts themselves through a place like that. Genuinely couldn’t advise against something more :/
Thank you. Right now I'm mostly going as to get that intake and see what they think is best, I definitely want to get the formal testing if possible.
It's definitely my depression taking the most hits on me, but i don't know if it's also like.. Bad enough to get admitted and that's what's kinda freaking me out cause I just don't feel like I can wait any longer but also like.. I don't feel the SI, but my mom's saying I almost looks like the last time they put me in there without the consenting.. Stuff. Idk, brains not working right rn obviously. I'm just hopingat the least if I'm not admitted they can at least help me get into an outpatient program of some sort that can do it.
The worst that can happen if you go to the emergency department for evaluation is they say no admission, provide a list of resources, and you’re out some time and an insurance copay. It is certainly not ideal but at least you’ll have your answer, if inpatient is what you think would be best. Sometimes they can expedite the process of getting started with IOP especially if it’s the same system (SSM to SSM for example). Do what you need to do to care for yourself! Life is rough and we’re all just doing the best we can, and some days our “best” won’t look too good at all.
I had to go to Mercy twice back in the early 2000's. I felt safe enough, even though I hated every minute of having to be there but they did help. I was in a really bad place and I was a danger to myself, they did get me on the long road to recovery from my chronic depression and got me on meds to help regulate my moods. Mercy St. Louis was good, the second time they had to send me to the Festus location though, that one caused more anxiety than it was worth because I was so far away from my family.
St Mary's hospital on Clayton road has a pretty good one treated my cousin great
I went there the other week for a viral virus thingy! They were definitely great, but I wasn't sure about their psychiatric
Is it inpatient?
Yeah they have in patient psychiatric ..very discreet and like it was so discreet my cousin checked in and we had no idea where he was till he called a week later saying come visit .. he said the food is great and they keep top tier snacks ...he actually voluntarily goes back just for fun I think sumtimes lol
Like he said the doctors aren't too great as far as figuring out what's wrong but as far as u just needing a break from reality and spot to relax away from everything I think that's the place
The er nurses were definitely nice last time i went (though mind you not for this lol) i think it'll definitely be my place honestly. Thank you
No problem I hope u feel better
Probably a slightly dumb question but I'm looking on the ssm site, I'm not seeing it having st Mary's having that, which department would I go to to get admitted? Er? 🥲
Yeah go to the ER and then they admit u from there …it’s in a separate building than the actual hospital so if u familiar with the hospital there’s another building on the same side of the street as the hospital that’s the building
I figured! Thank you lol, wanted to make sure beforehand.
Hey so I actually just called up there to make sure it still exist and they said yeah but they said depending on bed availability they could transfer u to a different hospital but just tell them that you not comfortable with that and only wanna stay there at that one lol hope it works out
Unfortunately they switched to geriatrics only
I can recommend SSM on Clayton Road but they ended up shipping me off to Wentzville due to lack of open beds. The Wentzville staff were amazing.
Avoid Centerpointe like the plague. Awful experience.
Best of luck to you, better days are just around the corner.
Avoid Centerpointe!!
Avoid it!!!!
100% fuck that place
Do you have a counselor? If so give them a call and let them know what’s going on. If you don’t have a counselor call the BHR line (314-469-6644) to talk to a licensed professional who can help you make a plan. They are a crisis line rather than a suicide hotline so they specialize in situations like this where life just feels like it’s spinning. They also can help explain available options in the area.
Unfortunately, because our area has so few psychiatric services available most traditional hospital based psych ward services are packed with a lot of pretty severe cases and mostly able to prioritize stabilization rather than performing assessments. Discussing intensive outpatient programs may be super helpful.
Clearly, if you’re worried about hurting yourself or others you need to go straight to the ER, though.
Please be kind to yourself and patient with yourself. You’re being very brave taking the first steps.
This so much. IOP or PHP may be better.
My adult kid & I both did Mercy IOP (out west on Olive) and both found it very helpful. For in-patient, avoid DePaul.
Noted! Thank you, I'll look at that too.
I've gone to the bjc psych ward a few times. It's pretty good. They use music therapy.
My mom went there, she said it was good too! We'll check on it.
Cool. Be safe.
I don't have any recommendations for psych wards but I'm proud of you for taking care of yourself, stay strong stranger 💛
I have been in multiple paych wards in st. Louis over the years. From my experience..... the psyche wards are usually full to maximum. So even if you decide on a specific one, they may have to transfer you to a different one.
Some are more strict than others. Some allow you to wear your own clothes. Some only allow you to wear basically paper scrubs.
As far as daily activities, over the years they have become less and less. Some barley even run group meetings anymore.
Probaly the one with the best "dstracting" activities is at Barnes in the central west end, offering an activities hour that is basically a arts and crafts area. But it has been about 6 years since I have been there.
Ultimately the psych wards only treat you while you are in crisis--- a threat to yourself or others. Once you are stable they try hard to discharge you.
Nursing student here. I’m rotating at st Mary’s on Clayton rd and it seems pretty good. Just avoid DePaul.
I liked DePaul but I was only there for a short period of time and it was my first time being admitted. What didn’t you like about it?
I heard from other students DePaul gets higher risk patients and more complex cases. But I personally don’t have experience seeing it in person.
Unless you’re in active SI (suicidal ideation), you’re not going to be admitted to any in-patient program. I suggest calling BHR and talking to them. That’s the best and fastest way to get you connected to resources. Also, reach out to your regular therapist. I hope you find peace.
Don't have a therapist. Been on a waitlist for over a year. 🤷♀️
Do you have a primary care physician? Perhaps you can ask for an emergency appointment and mental health referral.
Do you have any history of abuse or domestic violence? I ask bc if you do, I may have the name of a place thst can get you a therapist decently quick.
I went to a place in Wisconsin called Roger’s behavioral health. I didn’t want to go but my family pressured me to when my depression got bad. It turned everything around for me. I’d check them out. If you have any questions about the place or the experience my DMs are open or you can ask here.
https://rogersbh.org/what-we-treat/mood-disorders/mood-disorder-residential-services
Rogers totally changed my life. It also wasn’t 100% voluntary for me, but residential was worth it and I met some of my best friends there who I still talk to even almost 6 years later!
Unfortunately I don't drive (never got to learn) or we'd try looking further out. Plus gas is also expensive 🥲
You could wait for good plane ticket prices. The program isn’t a quick one like most mental hospitals. You’d have to be there like 5-8 weeks. They have out patient care online programs too! I did both. Both were helpful. Now I can actually keep a job and function lol.
I wish I knew of more local places :( I’m sure you’ll find something!
Compass Health 24/7 at 1032 Crosswinds Ct, Wentzville, MO 63385. Go around to the rear of the building.
I don’t have any recommendations for good ones, but I can tell you to stay away from Hyland and Centerpointe
Hyland is awful!
Centerpointe is awful. My ex was hospitalized twice there, in St Charles. He had physically abused one of our kids (choked him to the point of passing out) and had a clearly well thought out plan to kill me, and they released him back home after 5 days.
Took my other son (8th grade) to their Ballas office to be assessed after he and some classmates were cutting. They heavily medicated him for a year, and then refused to help me get him off the meds when I said I think this isn't the right answer. The psychiatrist actually said he thought my child should stay on meds until he graduated from college. Hard no. So I had to look up online how to wean him off myself.
I can’t tell you where would be a good place to go, but I’ve gone to Mercy South and everyone else and I all had pretty bad experiences with one staff member. This was about 5 years ago so maybe things have changed but it was extremely traumatic and frustrating. The staff was great, but the one psychiatrist was HORRIBLE.
I had a friend in there that had a medication he upped when my friend had told him the dosage it was just fine and he nearly overdosed in the hospital. (sleeping medication) When I was set up in the outpatient program he tried to prescribe me a medication for bipolar that was 200+ with my insurance. I told him my family didn’t really want to pay that much for a medication, and I was more interested in taking a non medication route, since I had tried other medication and was kinda just done with the idea of it. He told me that I wanted to stay depressed and didn’t want to get better, which is not exactly what a suicidal 14 year needs to hear when they’re trying to get better.
I wish you the best in finding treatment, and I hope that my experience can help
I'm almost 100% sure I know the psychiatrist you are talking about. He treated me inpatient at Mercy South and was also my psychiatrist afterwards for a few years. I can't even begin to describe how horrible he is. He heavily pressured me to get injections of strong antipsychotic medication. There was no need for it as I always took my pills. The injections ended up causing me to have severe hormonal problems including lactation because my prolactin levels were, I kid you not, like a thousand times higher than they were supposed to be due to that medication. He also put me on a combination of medications that the psychiatrist I started seeing after I fired the horrible one told me could be life-threatening in combination together. During the time I was on all those medications, I was so sedated and so severely depressed that all I did was sit in front of the window all day, stare out of it and cry. I couldn't drive or do anything else except color in coloring books occasionally. It was one of the worst times of my life and I blame him. Please OP, stay away from Mercy South inpatient.
Weirdly enough I have done the outpatient DBT program at Mercy South and have found it very helpful multiple times. They also have a "regular" outpatient program there but I haven't tried that. DBT program there was the only outpatient program I've done in St Louis that has helped. However, when I went for my interview to be admitted to the program, I had to tell them that I could only come if I wasn't assigned to the horrible psychiatrist. That was able to happen. OP, If you decide you want to try the DBT outpatient program at Mercy South, feel free to message me and I will share his name with you.
With the pressuring and the insanely high doses of medication I would be very shocked if we didn’t see the same person. I’m really saddened to hear others had awful experiences with him, but not surprised in the slightest. I hope you’ve found better care now
Yes, I have had a pretty good psychiatrist for the past few years, fortunately. I'm doing much better now. Hope you have found a better doc as well
Would you mind sending me the name via private message?
Sure!
I don’t have any recs for you on where to go, but I can tell you to not go to Gateway in Granite City. My dad was there, and it was a nightmare. With that being said, sending you positive/good vibes. That’s amazing you can recognize this, and get the help you need. You’ve got this!
Oh yeah no. I went there back in 8th grade for SI's, and that's actually the place that traumatized me 🥲nurses absolutely don't give a flying fuck about you there. Currently at St Mary's, they're waiting on a room for me rn so I can get an eval.
Edit: typo
Been there. Maybe different causes, but I just want to give a note of support for you.
Thank you. Even if I'm not admitted, I'm definitely gonna try to push for IOP somewhere like many suggested. 💕
Just saying, I was at a point where I was calling the suicide hotline daily at one point in my life. I was cautious about what I said. Not sure if they would try to find me, idk. But, it helped
18002738255
I don't want to be presumptuous, but I struggled due to pretty severe childhood issues.
I found that Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families has been a great help.
Zoom meetings from all around the world, which means you can find one going almost anytime of day
At first, I just laid in bed and listened. No camera on. Didn't talk.
You mentioned that travel is hard, so Zoom may be helpful.
I also found there's live meetings in St Louis at least daily (tomorrow being Easter causes one I go to to be shut down cause the church we rent is using the building all day).
Just listening to people can help
It definitely can. Thing is I wish I could actually travel here daily, im actually down from the illinois area nearby and it takes an hour just to get downtown. Thank you though, I'll look at it when i can.
I know of one that meets nightly 8pm cst PM me if you'd like the meeting number and password
I’ve been to SSM SLUH twice. Staff are awesome. Doctors care and listen to you no longer how long it takes. There usually are residents that are your primary doctors but you talk to both the resident (sometimes also a med student) and the attending and the attending will oversee everything. It can be tiring to say the same thing multiple times to different people but sometimes it can help venting to multiple people. I’ve been to DePaul and st. Mary’s but SLUH is by far the best one.
I also worked at DePaul and stayed as a patient. It wasn’t bad to me at least and had the best groups but it is more acute and you get all kinds of patients, and we regularly got codes for aggressive/disruptive patients multiple times a shift. People say it’s the worst one.
I work at centerpointe now. As a nurse it’s not great but I’ve gotten good feedback from patients. The good thing is that you don’t have to go through an ER, there’s a separate intake. And they deal with all sorts of stuff (except ED) like general mental illness, detox and residential for substance use. If you smoke, this is the only place you’ll get to go out to smoke. I don’t personally know about the doctors and NPs because I haven’t been a patient there.
When I was inpatient at centerpointe most of the NPs treated us like criminal kindergarteners and the doctors were over-medicating everyone into submission while committing sooo much insurance fraud. The smoke breaks and one or two employees who treated us like actual grown humans worthy of respect and compassion were literal life-savers.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve definitely seen more staff (techs, nurses and doctors/np) that are not as compassionate. I had a tech actually get into a full blown argument with a patient today. And I’ve also heard about insurance fraud. If I had to choose, it wouldn’t be my choice.
have you looked into RETREATS, not psych wards?
If it's the kind of thing I'm thinking of, not anything I've seen close enough. Regardless I'm open to ideas.
I work at Mercy South. The staff there is good. They'll set up intensive outpatient follow up before you leave.
Hyland is awful
I'd imagine my perspective visiting patients isn't equal to being there. But I've never had any patients report abuse or anything other than simply wanting to go home.
Not familiar with the area, just wanted to say I hope you get better ❤
Don’t go to depaul, center pointe is corrupt if u have good insurance but it’s the best u can rly get in this shittg town
10000% suggest Wentzville SSM! been there many times, as well as other places, and no where else can even compare. They just care & do things differently & right.
I won’t say they are perfect & have it done perfectly, but if I ever needed inpatient again- I’d ONLY go back to SSM Wentzville.
Chestnut in granite city IL they have a crisis unit, they do classes on grief and other topics.
Timberline knolls its outside of Chicago.
I don't have any additional suggestions, just wanted to say that I'm glad you're seeking the help you need & I hope something can be arranged for you. Sending you good thoughts.
If your insurance ID starts with XOG, BJC & Washington University is out-of-network.
From one internet stranger to another, I’m sending happy thoughts filled with endorphins and dopamine.
If you ever need a good giggle, I suggest r/dadjokes. The jokes are sometimes so dumb they can bring a little light to the darkness.
Sending very good vibes your way for healing and for getting better ❤️🩹
A few quick thoughts from someone within the mental health industry. This is not medical advice, more just ideas on how to obtain care and get off the wait list. - RODBT is an evidence based therapy for folks with severe depression who are on the autism spectrum. WashU is currently conducting a study on RODBT combined with ketamine. If you reach out to their psychiatry dept, you might be able to receive free therapy and ketamine treatments, as long as you’re a good fit for RODBT. - for getting an outpatient therapist, check your out of network benefits. very few therapists in STL accept BCBS because they slashed their reimbursements and have been royally screwing everyone over. It absolutely fucking blows for everyone with a BCBS policy. If you have out of network benefits, you might have an easier way of getting care by paying for services upfront and applying for reimbursement. If you can take on the cost initially and have out of network benefits, this would be your move. Fuck BCBS for fucking over their policy holders. - STL BMI has a good IOP program and accepts a lot of insurance. They provide DBT in their program, a type of treatment that heavily focuses on coping skills. Their reception and scheduling process is messy, but their program is pretty good. STL DBT is very good but very long waitlist and expensive.
Also! If you’re on the IL side, go on psychology today and look for therapists who provide telehealth. A lot more providers accept insurance in IL than in MO since insurance reimbursements are generally higher in IL. A lot of providers based out of the Chicago area provide virtual services across the state.
The only inpatient stay I have had that was decent and helpful here in St Louis was at Barnes-Jewish downtown. At the time I was there, they had two psych units, for different types of issues, and I was initially admitted to the one for more severe psychosis/mania type issues because that was the only spot they had at the time, but I was quickly switched over to the depression/suicidal unit. (Not sure how these units are actually divided or labeled, that was just my impression.)
I have also been inpatient at St Anthony's (now Mercy South), where I was put on much too overly heavy medication on several different occasions; Mercy, where the people were nice but I didn't feel anything helpful was done for me; and SLU, which was totally unhelpful. I have done the Mercy IOP program and It was okay, but the outpatient DBT program at Mercy South I have done several times and it is great. There's usually a wait to get in though.
This was all 4-5 years or more ago so things may have changed. I also have memory issues from ECT and other stuff so it's possible I'm remembering a few things wrong, but hopefully not. If I did have to go to the hospital again for psych reasons, I would go to Barnes downtown, and tell them I only wanted to be admitted there, not transferred elsewhere, even if I had to wait in the ER for a day or two.
Best of luck, friend.
Nurse supervisor of case management for an insurance company. Not your insurance company. But I did want to recommend calling the number on the back of your insurance card even if you are interested in IOP/PHP as they will be able to tell you who is in network. Often the process is a walk in to whatever health system you would choose and they will assess you and see what meets your needs the best from there.
As mentioned above, if you are concerned for your immediate safety or the safety of others around you, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.
I would also see if you can call Brave Health (305)902-6347 (or ask your insurance company if they accept). We refer several of our members there who have been long waitlisted to at the very least begin therapy virtually. They even have psychiatrists who can prescribe certain medications as well. Your insurance company in general may be able to give you lists of other resources that won’t leave you with a long waitlist.
Best of luck to you - things will get better and it’s clear that you want to get there which can make a world of difference. ❤️
Southeast Behavioral Hospital. I know it might be a drive, but they are the best I’ve ever dealt with. And you can do the intake over the phone before you drive down there. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I would also look into seeing a therapist regularly.
I went through a very rough experience a few years ago, and while I unfortunately don't have any sound advice on where to go, I can tell you to avoid centerpointe. It's the only psych ward I've been in, so I can't compare it to others, but it was awful. Honestly felt like being in jail, or at least what I imagine jail would be like. I was there for extreme anxiety and depression and suicidal ideations, but was in a ward with people who had severe mental illnesses (extreme bipolar, schizophrenia, etc.) and it ended up being a very scary and unproductive experience. I went to Mercy a few times after that, but was never actually admitted to inpatient. They were nice there, though, so maybe give that a thought. I hope you find something that can help you. Best of luck.
I recommend CenterPointe out in St Peters. The adult unit is pretty good. I was there one time with a great group of people. We had domino tourny going on in one day room and beer pong with water and apple juice in the second day room. The doctors there are pretty medicine heavy but it's a good place to "reboot" and get some help. They usually try to keep people a full 7 days so have that in mind when you go.
Oh, and they are good at getting insurance to okay an admission if you're not planning yourself or others but need help bc you're heading in thst direction. They know how to word things. I went bc I hadn't slept for 96 hours and was hallucinating. I knew the next phase would be the hallucinations telling me to harm myself.
My only experience is with mercy south. They seemed to be pretty good, all things considered.
I don’t have any recommendations, just wishing you all the best. It’s hard sometimes., stay strong 💜