Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute (PPI)

"READ ME. Do yourself a favor and seek treatment elsewhere. This facility is a complete JOKE. If you enjoy being laughed at, mocked, and have your trauma be downplayed then this is the place for you. It's unbelievable how poorly run this place is. The therapists are a joke. They must've gotten their certifications off the back of a cereal box. The "psychiatrists" are clueless. What an absolute waste of time."

"Are you KIDDING ME? I had a telehealth appointment for January 10, 2024 and I got a robocall confirming this about 2 days before the appointment. The day comes and I don’t get a link, so I start calling. Outpatient services won’t answer so I call again and the receptionist transfers me again and tells me to call back if they still don’t answer. I do that and she puts me through to someone who said he was the “admissions manager” who “doesn’t know what’s going on but he will find out and definitely call me back.” Guess who didn’t call? It’s hard having a mental health issue and getting in anywhere. I finally find a place and they constantly jerk me around rescheduling appointments (try me PPI, I have it all documented), but they would fill my medications so I wasn’t too upset about having appointments rescheduled 2 and 3 times by them. Now I have an appointment and they can’t be bothered to show up. I was told today that they’re not doing telehealth right now? Did anyone tell me? Did the robocall tell me this changed? Nope. These practices are horrible for someone who depends on medication to function and if they don’t know this they shouldn’t be in practice."

"The receptionist they have is horrible. They used to have a really good one. Now the current one never answers the phone. I call during normal business hours. Multiple times a day. I leave voicemails. No response no call back. I’ve resorted to calling the main hospital anytime I need anything. I’ve been out of medication and can’t get more because of how painfully lazy and incompetent the new receptionist is. Additionally - My replacement doctor since Dr Dalke left sees me as a number instead of as a person. Instead of finding real solutions she just wanted to put me on lithium. I had a great experience with Dr Dalke for the year+ that I got to work with her. Now I’m considering moving to a different practice, one that actually cares about their patients."

"Today I drove an hour to visit my partner in adolescent unit, who I've been living with for the past year. And I had confirmed with 3 staff that I'd be able to visit them. I was on the visitation list, and their parents approved me visiting ahead of time. But when I got there I was rudly turned away, and shortly after I came back up to ask a question. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, I was greeted with 2 truly unsympathetic and pushy security guards. And they forced me to leave, without me even doing anything wrong."

"I was a patient here with Dr Dalke for 3 years before she left and stuck me with Dr Kunkle and Dr Passley-Clarke, and immediately they made me unsafe and discharged me from treatment for being transgender and for asking for an anxiety medication to help with my severe anxiety that stems from complex post traumatic stress disorder due to being a trafficking and CSA survivor. Instead they have prevented me from seeing a psychiatrist, and they tried to force me to stop taking the lithium I've been taking for 15 years by refusing to let me access refills. I've called the patient advocate and I was promised a new doctor and refills until I found one. Instead, I was offered an appointment at 8 am on a day I work despite me living close to two hours away. I instead got an intake elsewhere, and now I'm not allowed to get my refills at all. Dr Kunkle told my pharmacy to not give them to me because I got a different doctor. I have 5 days of meds, a month of refills I can't access, my next appointment is the 22nd (21 days away) and the patient advocate and nurses here are refusing to do anything to make sure I don't go through lithium withdrawal. All because I mentioned being trans and wanting treatment for my diagnosis. This place isn't safe, they discriminate against the LGBT community and they purposely hurt patients who try to get treatment elsewhere. I already reported them to the state and I encourage others to as well."