The only families I know who were helped by inpatient locally were those whose child was neurotypical, not on any medication or in therapy, and then had a sudden mental health crisis--situational, brought on by hormones, etc etc. Child is hospitalized in crisis and put on medication and crisis is averted. The real help is the medication, not the doctors and therapists at the hospital.

If a child has been in therapy, on medication, on various treatments for years---inpatient does nothing but keep the child alive. If you need it, you need it, but don't have high expectations.

Last I heard late, in late 2018/early 2019, Adventist was re-opening.

OP, I am really glad you had a great experience at Shepherd Pratt, but consider yourself very lucky. We know multiple bad stories re Shepherd Pratt - from 2018 and 2017. One was our own and others were clients of a prominent practitioner whom many of you probably know. Our child was assaulted more than once by the same, much larger child. The assaults also happened within a day or two of each other - in front of a crew of staff who did not notice or did not act to prevent (particularly the second assault). The assaults were to the head area, and one was to the temporal region and could have become a TBI. The staff was not very forthcoming about it all either. Most of the staff were very nice but they did not seem to have the manpower or skills or resources etc. to help our child.

Also, there were some medication issues that I found perplexing at best. One had to do with another medical condition my child has, and one had to do with a medication that they were trying but which had potential affects on other organs. I will not go into the whole story but it did not inspire a lot of confidence. I chalk it up to insufficient resources.

We came out of it no better off - just drugged to the point of not being able to function at school. Since we did not live in MD, there was no transition program available. Our child then spiraled down much further over the course of the next 6 months. Our various drs and experts at home agreed that my son was in terrible shape when he came out but also that there was no good option in terms of another inpatient facility.

As an interesting after-effect, my child is now so scared of hospitals in general that he will not get near them. He talks often about the treatment at Shepherd Pratt and the nightmares he has due to his stay there. He hates us for requiring him to go there. I could go on and on.

Re CN - again I could recount multiple bad stories, ours and others. Also, during our visit, our child was almost assaulted in front of 4-5 staff members who did not seem to be busy really (were chatting etc.). They said "there was a blind spot" that prevented them from noticing that a ~150 lb older boy was preparing to assault my 50 lb child. I happened to be there and rescued my staff and alerted staff, who put the larger child in a padded room for a while (ie they recognized that the older child was preparing to assault my son when I rescued my child). Children's attending physicians and Social Worker later told us that they were not the right place because we were doing so much for our child already and that they were not very skilled with HFA Kids like ours.

Same story for Dominion - multiple bad stories and no good ones. We have not gone there however, so I don't have any first hand accounts.

I have spoken to a lot of psychiatrists, psychologists, neuro-psychologists and social workers about the inpatient situation in the DMV. None of them have thought that inpatient hospitalization was likely to help. All of them have expressed that the system is broken - particularly the crisis system.

My question is, if you go to the ER with your child, and the hospital agrees to admit him and looks on the bed registry for a bed...and the only bed available is at a hospital you refuse to send your child to....then what? Can you wait for a bed at a preferred place to open up? Do you just go home?

This is not our issue, but I know if a kid is on state insurance (like Medicaid or Chip), they don’t typically reimburse for inpatient facilities outside of the state that issues the insurance. (True for medical also.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The options in Virginia are even worse than Maryland.

Shady Grove Adventist in Rockville-children ages 8 and up.

Seriously. Brutal. Where are Virginia families supposed to go? I have only heard horror stories about Dominion so your other option is....the place that killed a kid?

From the other thread, I get the idea that you go wherever there is a bed. It doesn't have to be in your state. So Va could go to Md. Or Nova could go to Richmond or Va Beach. It's certainly not convenient and it makes things very difficult if there are other children at home.

how can a hospital in another state coordinate outpatient care in Virginia or Maryland when the child is discharged? That is very disturbing.

Outpatient care isn’t determined by state. A Fairfax family would have the same issues with care coordination if they went to Baltimore or they went to Va Beach even though Va Beach is in the same state as Fairfax. The nurse on the other thread commented this is an issue. Facilities are familiar with the resources and providers in their general area.

If you have a local team in place already, the facility will work with them for a continued care plan.