Carolina Partners In Mental Health

If I was able to give a negative score, I would.
The PA’s there are highly unqualified and look at you as if they are judging you.
I cancelled my next appointment well before the 24 hour notice of cancellation policy allows and yet they still sent me a bill.
I highly recommend seeking help from somewhere else.

If I could give them zero stars I would! They are incompetent in psychiatry and condescending towards their clients. They charge you for every small thing. They make you take a computerized test that isn’t covered by most insurance companies. They tell you it will be and have you agree to pay if it isn’t. Then of course it isn’t covered. It is $ 35 for the test that is five minutes long and unnecessary for the average patient. They also will not give you enough prescriptions to last until when they can get you in next time. Then, when you call to have them write one to last until your appt, they charge you to print it so you can pick it up. They also charge for prior authorizations for insurance companies that require them. This is generally not allowable by most insurance companies as it is part of their job. No other doctor office that I have ever visited charges for such minor things. They are just trying to make money by ripping off their patients.
I will never return to this place. Dr Vaishnavi is knowledgable and professional. He is very competent and seems like he would be a good doctor. However, what they don’t tell you is that you only see him for your first couple visits. Then you are pawned off on the most incompetent and unprofessional PA that I have ever met. I have never been treated so poorly by any medical professional in my life. Avoid this place at all costs! It is a bait and switch that will rip your off as often as possible.

We are established patients after seeing Mitch Odum and Dr. Vaishnavi. We didn’t feel Mitch was a good fit for us so I made an appt w/​Dr. Robertson who I was told takes our insurance. We needed this appt. My son is no longer under anyone’s care after being released from a special needs school. My appt was confirmed TWICE. I received a call 2 hrs prior to our appt that the doctor does not take our insurance and is not accepting new patients. This is not my error. I asked the right questions when making the appt. The error is on Carolina Partners. I politely, though frustrated, told Kerri in the Raleigh office, that we needed someone asap. Who do we see? Where do we go? When can we get in? She was crass the whole conversation and after getting an appt I asked her her name. She said «Kerri. Now don’t throw me under the bus now Mrs. Falcone.» In which I responded, «there will be no need to throw anyone under the bus if the job is being done correctly.»
I can not believe I was spoken to in this manner. It’s disgusting and the person who will now suffer is my 9 yr old child. Great job on the mental health support Carolina Partners! Shame on you!

I wish I could give zero stars. Kristine Ashton is the worst doctor I have ever seen. She should have her license revoked. PLEASE do not trust her with your mental stability.

I’m new to this therapy stuff. I’ve been dealing with unbearable post-​trauma following a sudden death in my immediate family. I sought counseling at the encouragement of my friends (along with several other avenues to help me cope), so I wasn’t entirely sure this was going to help, but I was willing to give anything a try. I made an appointment with the Raleigh office.
It was a bad experience from the moment I walked in the door. The staff were loudly laughing and joking behind the intake counter’s open glass. I stood like a deer in headlights already freaked out by just going into this place, and waited at the glass for someone to say something to me. I started to wonder if I was in the right building.
As the receptionist checked me in for my appointment, she was still engaged in a laughing conversation with 3 other girls in the room with her. They were making fun of a woman who showed up at the staff Christmas party wearing some ridiculous orange boots. The girls went on and on about how crazy and weird this orange-​boot woman was and as my receptionist was handing back my ID, she laughed and loudly said, «did one of our PATIENTS sneak into the party?» WTF??? She considers their patients to be nutjob crazy people and she doesn’t give a damn that anyone in the waiting room knows it?
If I weren’t already speechless, I may as well have swallowed my tongue.
My therapist was 15 minutes late. When she arrived she was neither comforting nor attentive (despite the fact that I was obviously distressed); she just led me back to her tiny office. The office was so small we were practically sitting on top of each other. There were 2 chairs for me to choose from and I felt very cramped and intimidated, so I began to sit in the chair furthest from the therapist. Immediately she told me to sit in the chair right in front of her, saying, «sit here, it will be better for me.» That small command promptly took away my freedom and set her in the place of power. It also showed my comfort was less important than hers.
When we began to talk, it was impersonal and business-​like. She asked me why I was there, and I briefly explained. She then said, «Alright, here’s how this is going to go. Since we’re strangers, I’m going to ask you a lot of questions, and I’m going to sit here and write…» I interjected to say that I didn’t think this was what I was looking for and that I should go. She leaned toward me and told me since I was «paying for this» (indicating that whether or not I left I was going to pay for this session) I may as well try to get something from it.
As it turned out money and time became the bookends of this experience.
The demand of questions began. She proceeded to delve into raw, emotional subjects in a rapid-​fire, impersonal manner, nonchalantly digressing this-​way-​and-​that depending on my answers. Many of the questions were very personal and totally unrelated to the context of my visit. I felt dominated and «taken from» as if she’d clinically thrust her hand into my heart and snatched out a handful for analysis. Occasionally she would make a grunting noise in response to my answers. I was in tears for most of the inquiry, yet there were no comforting words, just question after question. This went on for about 20 minutes.
At the end of the inquisition she promptly told me «that’s it for the day» and proceeded to dictate another monologue about her cancellation policies. My head was reeling from all the emotional artifacts I’d just been sped through digging up, yet she didn’t miss a beat. She moved straight into an extremely complicated and impossible-​to-​follow set of rules about canceling — how to cancel, when to cancel, how to get a discount IF you cancel correctly, how much you’ll have to PAY if you cancel depending on WHEN you cancel, who to call when you cancel, and what happens if you’re a NO-​SHOW. This segued into how much today’s session cost ($ 200) for 45 minutes, and how much the following sessions would cost ($ 120). I can get a 60-​minute comforting massage for $ 65, a laughter-​and-​wellness session for a donation, and an effing tattoo for $ 100/​hr. All of which have been better «therapies» for me.
She then recommended I come in weekly and told me that if I chose to come back I could schedule an appointment at the counter on the way out. She gave me a piece of paper, and I went back to the girls behind the glass.
I gave the paper to the girl. She looked at the paper and then she looked at me and we just stared at each other for a moment. She finally said, «this says she recommends you make an appointment for next week. Did you want to make an appointment?» I said no, to which she said, «mmm not a good fit, eh? That happens sometimes.»
Obviously, if this is therapy or counseling then my ideas of what it would be are completely wrong and you can ignore my ignorant review. If this is therapy then therapy is not what I was looking for.