My experience at Life Worth Living (LWL) was more of a 5 part journey that I will break into a short and long version. LWL does biofeedback, EMDR, EEGs, etc.
SHORT VERSION: it took 3 highly expensive visits to finally achieve an EEG (unorganized scheduling), then 2 weeks to hound both the psychologist and the director of the center to send my results, another week to receive the written (incorrect) report, and then was double billed for services already paid for. Overall: an experience that began solid, but ended up causing more stress than good.
VISITS - Far too many. Felt like a stretched way to bill insurance additionally.
DR. KOWAL - Impressively knowledgeable. Kind and focused (one-on-one). Completely unorganized and stretched in too many directions to make you a priority. Unresponsive to emails/calls.
EEG CENTER- LCPC had a dry personality, but remained flexible and knowledgeable. SW/Tech (self-admitting) had no idea what she was doing, what the mapping was used for, but was enjoyable to talk to outside of what the center specializes in. These are supposedly the same people that give EMDR, which I would never ever trust. I couldn't imagine having these people manage something as intimate and precarious as EMDR after struggles with scheduling/knowing what a specific brain map is.
THERAPY CENTER - The building/office itself is a welcoming environment and truly peaceful. **The visits with Dr. Kowal and the EEG/biofeedback itself are in two separate locations.
REPORTS/RESULTS - Insultingly obvious copy-and-paste job. Partially incorrect. Several weeks late. Only received reports because I emailed/called consistently and finally requested the help of the center's director. Results were another waiting game.
BILLING - Billed twice for some services. Received multiple bills, all stating different things.
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Account of events:
First call with Dr. Kowal very thorough and gave me high hopes about the process in general. It wasn't until the second visit that I began to severely doubt the process.
1st Visit: necessary and went over family history, expectations of what insurance covers, etc. Extremely informative and Dr. Kowal was warm, Seemingly attentive, excited about his job, and self-disclosed enough to build a comfortable rapport. Just when you get used to Dr. Kowal though, you're tossed to lower level professionals that have a sub par bedside and background.
2nd Visit: (felt overdone) included questionnaires, memory tests, etc. Although this info is important to capture the entire picture of an individual, hardly ANY of it was used for my final report. The report also incorrectly detailed my family history that we spent a chunk of billable time to discuss.
3rd Visit: Dr. Kowal set the time and date in his phone for the EEG, and I was scheduled. Or so I thought....
My appt. was at 12:30, I arrived at 12:20. There was a mom/son sharing the waiting room with me. Despite our several taps on the front desk bell and hearing people chatting, no one waltzed to the desk until 12:50 when the mom began yelling,"Hello?!" When the LCPC finally appeared, she didn't have the mom/son in her scheduling. Mom/son put up a confused protest, rescheduled, but mistakes happen, right? Wrong.
Finally, at 1:10, the LCPC asked me if I wanted to make an appointment, to which I responded,"I'm actually here for a 12:30 appointment." She looked at the computer and the same song and dance occurs: "Oh, you're not on our schedule. Dr. Kowal must not have synced his appointment book with ours again! I don't know if we have room for you right now." I had to explain that I drove here 45 minutes from the city (for the 3rd time) for this appointment and needed to be seen. Like, 40 minutes ago. She suddenly had time and took me in. This happened w/ 2 of my visits here!
The EEG itself was painless and relatively quick. LCPC ended up being nice about everything.
4th Visit: Dr. Kowal going over the results. He wrote tons of exciting notes all over the EEG pages themselves about what everything meant....then kept them for himself. If I wanted a hard copy of the EEGs themselves, I'd have to pay upwards of $40 for them. He offered to email them-but this took weeks of reminding.
This session itself was fascinating and he spent a good hour reviewing everything, but if you don't take notes or have a steal trap memory then it's a bust. I appreciated him answering my questions and making me feel involved in understanding what was in front of us. He also showed compassion for my brain activity.
I drove an hour round-trip to LWL a total of 5 times because I wanted to keep believing that the process would smooth out, but it never did. It was just too difficult, expensive, and unorganized to continue working with. I let this rating stew for nearly 3 months to insure its accuracy, and it's still a 2. I'd consider other options for biofeedback, etc in the future. read more
