Family Essentials Counseling

"My daughter recently saw a therapist there, whom she really liked, but due to their asinine cancellation policy of no more than two cancellations in a 90 day period, she was just dropped. My family recently got hit with a bad flu so, when I got the text to confirm her last appointment, I said no and texted back that she was sick and would be going to the pediatrician. Instead of responding to my text or working with us, we just got a letter saying she was dropped. We ran into this when she saw another counselor there and we had to cancel due to illness where we had to either reschedule during the week, setup a virtual conference (which is very difficult and discouraged by the therapist due to my daughter's age), or bring her into the office and risk the health of other families and the staff. Don't get me wrong, the therapists she was were awesome. This is not on them. This is on their cancellation policy and the unwillingness to work with families of young children who have to cancel due to illness, especially this time of year when it's cold and flu season."

"Some of the therapist are great surely, but the way they run the business is terrible. They dropped me as a client via text message. They did it because I mentioned I was looking into applying for disability. I had not applied and even provided them with verification. They were not even professional enough to give me a phone call. Disappointing on so many levels. Potentially damaging to someone going through mental health struggles. Shame on you."

"I highly recommend avoiding Edmilly. She was terrible at counseling and ended up giving me an inappropriate and unethical ultimatum and discharging me as a patient."

"To anyone looking into Family Essentials Counseling, please take all of the reviews based on the billing department seriously; they are accurate; the billing department is terrible here and the sole reason for the single-star review! I found Family Essentials Counseling at a very low point in my life. Annie K is a fantastic therapist; I have seen about eight therapists between 2012 and now (I got bounced around due to moving to new cities, insurance changes, and therapists moving away), and she is easily the best counselor I have worked with. She is excellent, and if this review were solely about her, I would leave a 5-star review. I am giving 1 star (I would give 0 if possible) because Family Essentials Counseling's billing department is abysmal. They make sloppy mistakes that have huge financial impacts on the client, and they simply refuse to do their job. The billing department makes a great therapy option into something that should be avoided at all costs. One reason for my single-star review is that the billing department messed up my insurance and charged me $60/week when I had full coverage and no copay. They did reimburse me, but I was unemployed while seeing Annie initially, and $60/week was not something that caused financial strain. I appreciated that they fixed the problem, but it would have been nice if they didn't make the problem in the first place. My main gripe with the billing department is they flat-out refused to make a single-case exception when I requested one since I was changing insurance providers and Annie was no longer in-network. Filling out single-case exceptions is a part of the job of a billing office for a counseling clinic. I asked three times if they could please do it, and I made it clear that, without this form, I would need to find a new therapist. I explained to them that I was having great success with Annie, that I had established trust with her over the past four months, and that, while I wanted to remain her client, the $85/week cost of seeing Annie as an out of network provider was something I could not afford. They refused each time, claiming their office was "too small" to handle those forms. The clinic's staffing issues are not my problem, but the billing department made them my problem by forcing me to find a new therapist. Filling these forms out is a part of the job; this is nothing shy of negligence and laziness. I LOVED working with Annie. I would give her a million stars. But Family Essentials Counseling is not a good business and should be avoided."

"Just called to get established as a new client and the receptionist was rude, over talked me and didn't even bother listening and assumed I wanted a same day appointment. The way I see it, if this employee that is the face and voice of this clinic can't be professional, it makes you wonder how their counselors/therapist are. Honestly think she hates her job because even over those phone I didn't hear any pride in it. Thanks Melanie for your unprofessional PR."