Complaint Review: Hope Stein - Jenkintown PA

Treatment and recovery from any chronic mental health issue is best done in your own home, in your own community. This includes treatment for substance based and process addictions (involving things like work addiction, shopping or gambling).

The evidence is not only clear that home and community based services have better outcomes in primary treatment, but that in-patient services actively harm you the longer you are in them. This can create secondary problems which themselves can be harder to treat than the original reason for admittance. 

Additionally; learning skills to manage a long term illness in a hospital can be difficult to transfer to one’s actual lived life, leading to relapse. This cycle in itself creates further problems of treatment resistance.

Despite this, the addiction treatment industry is almost wholly focussed on getting you into in-patient ‘rehab’. Many providers will point to their full services as evidence they are meeting need, when in fact their services are full because of a range of open and not so open marketing and referral practices. This includes some that are downright illegal in many places, such as referral fees.

But; even without referral fees the addiction industry is effectively a pyramid selling scam. It is bloated and interdependent. 

A good example of this scam is what is known as ‘interventions’ and interventionists. This is a (self) recognised profession that wholly focuses on overcoming an addicts resistance to treatment, which as an idea is bizarre. 

The theory at work here is that the interventionist has special insight into the ‘denial’ of the addict and their loved ones. And therefore can help smash this denial and get the addict to rush off to a dangerous inpatient facility that the interventionist recommends. 

Lack of insight into being ill is a common feature of most if not all mental health conditions – addiction isn’t special in that regard – but it seems it needs a special word (‘denial’) for what is commonplace. 

The term used is a very outmoded concept from Freud that suggests something is actively being done by the addict which needs to be broken. In mental and emotional health we still think about denial but mostly in the context of how it can protect people from harsh reality and therefore have helpful features. As a clinician I wouldn’t dream of smashing any part of a client’s psyche and especially not something that might be helping them. What we know is that as we give people better ways to cope, the ones that are double-edged, such as denial, fade out of use.

Imagine an interventionist being interviewed by a family who ask ‘how many people have you gotten into rehab?’ who says ‘actually, none’. Are they going to get the job? Unlikely.

There is a clear financial incentive, even without referral fees to get the addict into rehab. As you can imagine the rehabs themselves love and fete interventionists. The successful ones will make millions from this. And piously intone they are helping save lives, when in fact there’s little evidence that is true and quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. 

Interventionists are channelling patients into inappropriate inpatient facilities that provide treatment models (institution based) that are way out of date, ineffective and actually harmful. 

Let’s imagine someone with depression, or anxiety or maybe bi-polar disorder. Would anyone think it’s acceptable to gather all the people that are important to them in one room to pile pressure on them to admit themselves to hospital. The pressure often takes the form of ‘if you don’t do this we will cut you off.’ In fact there are legal safeguards in place against this happening and only very proscribed circumstance under which pressure can be brought to bear on someone to accept treatment they don’t want. 

None of the unhelpful and dubious assumptions underlying interventions are ever questioned and there is a symbiosis of rehab and the interventionist. They both need each other to exist. Of course referral fees do exist even here and they are in the form of ‘consultancy’ fees. 

Rehabs turn failure to deliver effective treatment into a marketing gimmick, telling patients they will need multiple admissions to get well. And usually blame the addict for the failure to work their programme well enough. 

It’s an absolute truism in this work that addicts only begin the process of recovery after discharge. This is true in all mental health conditions. You don’t get well in hospital, you stabilise enough to go home and get well there. 

In good rehabs, which do exist, from the moment of admission discharge is being planned for. But even the best rehab I’ve ever visited is still far behind the worst psychiatric ward I’ve visited in terms of admission and discharge. 

Rehabs routinely trot out the line that treatment will take 28 days, or six weeks, or longer. Even the worst (NHS) psychiatric ward in the UK will automatically be working to reduce the stay of any patient to an absolute minimum. It is absolutely standard practice in all rehabs to try to achieve opposite outcome, to keep patients in as long as possible.

This complete reversal of best practice in the rehab industry has led to even greater bloating of the market with the development of what are known as sober homes and sober services. 

It’s common for rehabs to talk in pseudo-clinical terms about primary, secondary and tertiary treatment. In mainstream mental health in the UK these terms refer to referral routes. 

Primary care is self-referral services such as an accident and emergency or GP services etc. 

Secondary and tertiary being services that are accessed by professional referral. This is fairly standard practice in most healthcare systems in Europe and the world. 

The key point is that you will access these other services after discharge and they will be part of a package to avoid further inpatient stay, reducing institutionalisation and treatment resistance. 

In the addiction industry secondary and tertiary refer to elongating the in-patient period to ‘sober homes’ which are theorised, without any evidence, to transition an addict back to their life. It’s interesting to note this transition always takes many months and often takes over a year. And it also costs a lot of money. 

They have sprung up largely because the relapse rate from ‘primary’ (OUTPATIENT) treatment is so bad. But; of course this didn’t lead to a re-evaluation of the treatment model, it led to a continuation of the model into months and sometimes years of disabling support in mini institutions in the community. 

If the addict wasn’t removed for their home and community at the primary stage and kept inside an institution for an abnormally long period of time, it can be seen that the transition issues might not exist. 

It’s a classic example of an industry providing a solution to a problem it has created.

To be truly healthy a provider of mental health services must be working towards not being relevant to a client or patient. To empower and enable the patients to manage their conditions for themselves. 

It’s sadly the case that there is on the whole a lack of this approach in addiction services. There is mostly an approach based on keeping the patient bound to them for as long as possible.

If I would have known that the owner of "Renew Family Services;" Hope M. Stein of 6009 Creekside Drive, Flourtown PA had been arrested, charged, and; subsequently convicted of "Possession of a Controlled Substance/FIREARM on a public street;" I would have never have used her as a "therapist."

Hope Stein is a textbook Psychopath.  BEWARE...

Here is how it works:  Hope is billing the insurance for "Rehabilitative Services;" meanwhile, she (and her staff) are essentially just conducting (shoddy) "therapy;" etc.  Also; she needs an MD around to "authorize" those $2,000.00. urine tests; psych meds; Suboxone etc.  The Psychiatrist that she uses is Dr. Peter Ganime who is about 90 years old and just works at Renew as he is on his way out.  And; the "Sub Doctor" that she uses is Dr. David Mattingly DO who is a pervert.

The insurance "pay-out" rate is higher (and more abundant) for Rehab than it is for traditional Counseling Services. Like an "Escort Service;" all calls go through Hope so she makes sure to get her "cut" of the appointment.  This means that Hope Stein does not even trust her own staff to give her "cut."  Would YOU trust these people??  I wouldn't.    

No one even really works here; they are all part-time independent contractors. "Renew Family Services" is (on paper; anyway) a "Drug/Alcohol Rehab Facility" which entitles her to bill at higher rate. In fact; being that Renew is a "Rehab;" Hope was getting paid (Substantially) more than the Pain Specialist MD (who is; in fact, helping me "titrate" off of the controlled the substance) just for "therapy."  

Hope has been investigated for Insurance Fraud; but, what she is doing is not (technically) illegal.  It is just a shady "loophole;" and, Hope Stein is "milking it" for all that it is worth while providing little-to-no "value" for addicts and their families.

This is probably the reason why that when you "say something that they don't like;" they will "drop" you as a client; fast.  

And; I tried one of those "groups."  It was non-existent as only one other person showed up; and, the "group leader" read questions from a paper.  Again; it was just an execuse to bill the insurance (for the higher rehab rate). 

It's as if Hope finds her staff "off of the streets." Both staff and clients alike "come and go" out of that place; nobody sticks around for very long.  It's like a MILL!

Renew is just a phony racket that is "dressed-up" and presented to desparate; suffering; and ignorant as "treatment;" when, in fact it is not. 

It is just a SCAM!

If you take notice; all of Hope's "Awards & Recognitions" are from agencies that make money off of her.  None of them are from accredited organizations like normal professionals; its just "puffery."  

"The Special Court Judges Association of Pennsylvania", "Drug Addiction Resource Alliance:"  Who is she trying to kid??  Those "awards are the same as a Sales Rep being awarder for making a lot of Sales.  Hope Stein is a Sales Representative; no more/less. 

That entire industry is a SCAM!  

If you are legitamate interested in "getting clean" than go elsewhere!

 This provider is an ardent LIAR. She lies even when there is no reason too. STAY AWAY!

 Do NOT let this provider talk you into going "in-patient" if you have been using (or abusing) BENZOS (Benzodiaspines) for any length of time. JUST DON'T DO IT!!!

Not PROVEN to WORK.  WASTE OF MONEY! 

npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/02/602908208/questions-raised-about-study-of-device-to-ease-opioid-withdrawal

statnews.com/2017/08/23/bridge-opioid-detox-marketing/

I will never use another "therapist" who is NOT addressed as "Doctor" EVER again....

This provider was arrested and charged with "Possession of a Controlled Substance while carrying a Fire-arm in a public area."  She claims that it makes her a better Addictions counselor/Therapist. 

I do not believe this "claim" and cannot find any "evidence" to back it up.  It just SOUND GOOD.

In my OPINION; I would not trust a Recovering Addict to treat me (or my loved ones) anymore than I would trust a Recovering PEDOPHILE too!

It has been my experience that people who are "in recovery" are NOT to be TRUSTED.  ESPECIALLY with a PROBLEM of this MAGNITUDE!

After having no other option other than reporting this facility; I have finally received my Medical Records from Renew Family Services.  Thank you.

I requested (in writing) via US Mail copies of my medical records over (30) days ago; and, this piece of trash did not even respond to my request.  

Does anyone know what this treatment provider is hiding??

If you go on youtube and do some research; you will see that the "Addiction Treatment & Recovery" industry is nothing but a RIPOFF.  They make huge profits of desparate and suffering people while providing little-to-no REAL (AND LONG TERM) SOLUTIONS!  This is probably why the success rate is abysmal in the "Addiction Treatment & Recovery" Industry.  Just "smoke & mirrors."

For decades, Americans have clung to a near-religious conviction that rehab — and the 12-step model pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous that almost all facilities rely upon — offers effective treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.

Here’s the problem: We have little indication that this treatment is effective. When an alcoholic or drug addict goes to rehab but does not recover, it is he who is said to have failed. But it is rehab that is failing alcoholics and drug addicts.

The therapies offered in most U.S. drug/alcohol treatment centers are so divorced from state-of-the-art of medical knowledge that we might dismiss them as merely quaint — if it weren’t for the fact that alcoholism is a deadly and devastating disease.

 I was sent to one of these places by Hope Stein; and, it made my condition(s) WORSE!

Short-term residential detoxes are inappropriate for benzo withdrawal no matter what the staff or fancy brochures may say (in my opinion). Benzo withdrawal typically takes weeks and months and is best done at home with the proper information, support and comfort measures.

This "genius" did not know (or care) about this.  All Hope Stein cares about is your MONEY!

Enter Renew Family Services at your OWN RISK!

Short-term residential detoxes are inappropriate for benzo withdrawal no matter what the staff or fancy brochures may say (in my opinion). Benzo withdrawal typically takes weeks and months and is best done at home with the proper information, support and comfort measures.

These "geniuses" did not know (or care) about this.  Hope Stein sent me to one of those "detox facilities;" and, the results were disastrous.

Hope's aftercare and therapy stinks too!

Enter Renew Family Services at your OWN RISK!

Hope Stein is pure FILTH!  Do a background search and you will see WHO Hope Stein REALLY is; not just what she "pretends" to be.  I would not trust her with myself; family; loved ones; or friends.  She is just a "body broker" for multiple rehabs instead of just one.

You are better off going across the street in the same parking lot and using Dr. Carol Ludolph.  505 York Road Jenkintown.  She is much more qualified than the outdated "quack" that Hope Stein uses at Renew.  Her office is much cleaner and her staff is more professional too.  Dr. Ludolph is an expert at getting people off of drugs/alcohol and Pain Management.  The Doctor that use at Renew is Dr. Peter Ganime; and, his reviews speak for thermselves....

If you are trying to get off of drugs/alcohol or need pain management; you are better off going across the parking lot to the 505 building on Old York Road and using Dr. Carol Ludolplh; MD.  She is much better than the outdated-quack that they use at Renew and her staff are (much) more professional.  The office is cleaner too.