This place highlights the incestuous relationship between drug companies and providers in a way that I have never personally experienced. Pill mill is the most positive term I can think of to describe Sahara behavioral health. I have been to a handful of psychiatrists in my lifetime and never have I felt that my personal safety was disregarded for a paycheck more I did here. The provider I was assigned to, Baraba Kayiira, diagnosed me within 30 minutes via telehealth with a disorder that I have not only never been diagnosed with before, but showed almost zero symptoms of. She then put me on medication that my insurance could not cover(she was aware of this, and even told me my insurance would most likely deny her claim). I work in a clinic myself, and I could not in good conscience prescribe a patient a medication that would cost them $1,900 per month - especially if that patient had expressed concerns regarding finances. EVEN IF this medication made any sense to prescribe to me, this would be a glaring red flag. Combined with the fact that this medication made absolutely no sense for me, I felt that this was purely based off of financial incentive for Barbara. Being desperate for help, I tried the medication anyway. I received no benefit and only side effects, unsurprisingly. When I brought up these concerns with Barbara, she responded by repeating the exact same cycle, but now with two medications: one for the disorder that only she diagnosed me with(which she told me again I would most likely be being paying out-of-pocket for), and a second medication that I had already tried in the past and only had side effects with no benefit. I had made Barbara aware that I had already tried and received no benefit from this medication during our first appointment. I had to ask about this multiple times and was met with a description of the drug, as if that was my misunderstanding. Eventually, when I said "would this drug not working for me last year be an indication that it might not be a good idea for me to try again?" And she finally relented, saying something along the lines of "hmm, okay." I should add that Barbara is frequently late, and quite defensive about it, too.
You can only access this place via phone call(they will tell you to go to their website during your wait time, which will redirect you to their phone number). I'm not sure if its just one receptionist for every single provider, but you should expect a 10-35 minute wait before speaking to someone. Multiple times, I have waited for 20 minutes, only to be hung up on. I have received blatantly incorrect instructions on how to pay my bill, access a telehealth appointment, and check for new statements, and then when I would point out that the instructions I reviewed made no sense, I would receive new, now correct instructions, complete with a snarky attitude. I even asked "just making sure I'm not crazy here, but the first thing you told me to do wasn't actually possible, right? Or did I do something wrong, maybe clicked on the wrong thing?" And received a snarky non-answer. For example, the receptionist told me, over the phone, that I needed to pay for my appointment prior to the appointment, or it would be automatically cancelled. I asked how to pay, and was told to pay through the website/patient portal(which looks like it hasn't been updated since 1999, not a huge deal, but worth mentioning). I went onto the patient portal, and looked for a place to view statements and/or pay bills. I ended up clicking on every single clickable word in an attempt to find this page. Worried that my appointment would be canceled, I called back. I was then told to just pay over the phone. I had been waiting 15+ minutes for both of these calls, and had been hung up on while waiting for the first one, so I was a little panicked at this point. I told her "I'm just a little worried, since the last person I spoke to told me that my appointment would be automatically canceled if I didn't pay, and then the instructions to pay weren't-" when I was cut off and told "Yeah that last person was me." Which is when I asked about her first instructions, and was finally told something along the lines of "yeah well maybe it isn't up on our end yet". Which I guess was just up to me to find out, and call to amend. Just little experiences like this all adding up to being mis-diagnosed, mis-medicated, and downright disregarded have honestly turned me away from psychiatry as a whole.
You will receive subpar "care", be spoken down to, and made to wait for this treatment. If you express frustration(like any normal human being would) you will be considered "anxious presenting". Kind of an interesting way to treat people.
I have never in my life considered contacting the Better Business Bureau, but I feel that someone needs to check in on this place. Grossly unethical at best. read more
