ABOUT JOHN T. MATHER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL – BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES
Located in the New York City suburbs, in Long Island’s Suffolk County, the John T. Mather Memorial Hospital is a 248-bed, nonprofit community teaching hospital that treats adolescents, adults, and families. The hospital’s Behavioral Health Services division offers inpatient and outpatient care for adults and adolescents struggling with psychiatric problems, mental health disorders, and addiction. Outpatient programming for eating disorders is also available.
John T. Mather Hospital offers one of 80 hospital inpatient rehab programs in the state of New York, and, according to its website, Suffolk County’s only inpatient psychiatric unit for adolescents. The hospital’s website does not specifically mention whether detox services are available.
TREATMENT & ASSESSMENT
For those requiring intensive, 24/7 psychiatric care, the center can help individuals struggling with a variety of behavioral and psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and panic disorders, depression, bipolar illness, schizophrenia, and eating disorders. Inpatient treatment is intended for short-term stabilization purposes only.
For those who do not require an overnight stay – or inpatients stepping down to less intensive treatment – there are both adult and adolescent partial hospitalization programs (PHPs). For six to seven hours each weekday, clients attend individual, group, and family therapy, as well as psychoeducational groups focused on strengthening their coping and interpersonal skills. Featuring similar treatment services, the IOP runs from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. The average length of stay in outpatient care is two weeks.
The Eating Disorders Program addresses the physical, psychological, and nutritional aspects of eating disorders, and offers two balanced meals each day as well as transportation services.
The center’s Outpatient Chemical Dependency Clinic offers individualized treatment and a range of counseling and psychiatric services to help clients in their recovery. The IOP includes three hours of treatment per day for three days a week, for approximately six weeks. The step-down outpatient program (OP) track provides one to three sessions of individual and group counseling per week. The clinic operates Monday through Saturday and is located across the street from Mather Hospital.
STAFF CREDENTIALS
The multidisciplinary Behavioral Health Services staff includes psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, mental health technicians, licensed clinical social workers, recreational therapists, and certified alcohol and substance abuse counselors. The single individual polled by Best-rehabs.com to date on the staff’s level of training and experience gave it three out of five stars.
ACCOMMODATIONS & AMENITIES
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital’s Behavioral Health Services offers a 27-bed inpatient unit for adults and a 10-bed unit for adolescents. Both of the individuals polled by Best-rehabs.com to date gave the facility impressive four- and five-star ratings for its cleanliness, accommodations, and meals and nutrition.
WHAT ALUMNI SAY
Best-rehabs.com has received mostly positive feedback from a former client who attended the Eating Disorders Program. They gave the program five stars for its staff support and leisure activities and four stars for the overall quality of its group counseling, though just one star for the overall quality of its individual counseling. The reviewer wrote that they were in a different position to most of the center’s eating disorder clients, because they “had not been in residential treatment for an eating disorder before.”
The hospital’s mental health services have stellar feedback on secondary sites at the time of this writing, with three five-star ratings on Google.[1] “Very good hospital,” Christopher wrote in the only piece of accompanying commentary. The hospital as a whole has more mixed reviews, with a 3.4 out of five-star average rating based on 60 reviews on Google.[2]
The reviews contain repeated complaints about long wait times and unexpected items on bills. However, just as many clients left glowing reports of the staff. “We have had nothing but the best care. Everyone was kind and compassionate. I refer this hospital to my friends and family,” Kristen, a representative reviewer, wrote.
WHAT FRIENDS & FAMILY SAY
The single loved one polled by Best-rehabs.com to date would recommend the behavioral health department. “The staff was courteous and my brother got helped a great deal being there for drug abuse,” the anonymous reviewer wrote, giving the facility five stars for its counseling options and ability to treat co-occurring disorders, four stars for its holistic options, and three stars for its family participation.
FINANCING
The hospital accepts numerous insurance plans, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Cigna. It’s also among the 46.1 percent of facilities in New York State that accepts Medicare, and the 85.2 percent that accepts Medicaid. The facility advises that physicians bill their services separately and may or may not accept the same insurance as the center.
For qualifying clients, sliding-scale fees are available through the hospital’s charity care policy – making Mather one of the 79.4 percent of rehabs in New York State to offer a sliding fee scale.
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