More than 6 months later update

My son is doing still remarkably well since being brought off the medications Prairie Care put him on.
Not only has he lost weight, he seems like his happy self-and has brought home great grades.

Although we deal with high functioning autism, we deal with it with a highly qualified pyschiatrist, not locking him in a facility that was, in our view, extremely detrimental and dangerous to him.

Prairie Care has ignored our requests to return the money they overcharged us. We have seen no response as to why we were forced to pay interest but no one else was.

Joel Oberstar. I am beginning to wonder if he is receiving political favoritism. I just wonder. And I do have to question whether he rolls around in money at night at the expense of mislead parents trying desperately to help their child.
Listen Nurse Ratchet Oberstar, we are very nice people. But you have never bothered to find that out. You relied on mean little misleader Todd (our view)  You just grubbed our money that you knew we contested.
The key to being a great doctor is to open your mind. You don't know what you did and have never shown interest in wanting to know. That makes me sick. Unfortunately, it could be making your patients sick as well. Closed minded bureacratic doctors, in my view, and others, are dangerous. Their cockiness can cause harm.

We tried not to litigate, insisted we didn't want to, but saw DANGERS to children in your facility and quietly wanted to let you know. Your people attacked us for it. Cruelly.

 That's just for what we brought up for health care. Not the money part-for safety of children. I am not bending over for your whipping boy.

I imagine Todd Archebold is still acting like a baby that he was called a sexist after, in my view, he acted like one for no particular reason. But you never cared to open your eyes to another side.

Prairie Care refused to respond to the Better Business Bureau and got dropped a grade.

Steve White is not UNBIASED or NEUTRAL or YOUR ADVOCATE. He works for them. And we have refuted some of his tall tales with his own voice recorded on our voicemail.

The Attorney General's office has a beginning if they ever decide to take action. Please file if you know something, anything. If they are not protecting them for political reasons maybe children will be spared what we view as something out of one flew over the cuckoos nest.

Prairie Care was caught in their own BS, when they threw out claims against me to the attorney general and I responded with their own voice mails directly refuting their comments.

And as for bait and switch money grubbing. 

Prairie Care has not responded to us whether they are interested in overtreatment. I repeat, which every parent should know.

 Before admission, my son was NEVER seen by a psychiatrist or psychologist. He was never tested. He was not deemed an emergency in their own words. But they made us as vulnerable parents believe. They made us believe their partial hospitalization program would help him. (if they lived with what we saw, they would know they hurt him-badly) Their program, they claim is a step down, or when outpatient doesn't work, they pushed us to put him in, with no prior psychiatric evaluation. 

They made us believe we would only pay 2k out of pocket for 30 days. We pulled him out after 14, (we had been thinking of pulling him out sooner but they swore the behavior would get better and we may hurt him to stop)
They NEVER told us how much they cost. They only told us they checked with our insurance and we would pay 2k out of pocket for 30 days. Repeat, they NEVER told us their costs, and yet they wish to blame our insurance.

They knew we adamently believed and feel we have abundant proof they broke their word yet grabbed our money anyway. They never committed to us to helping the girl who had her face on the radiator that we witnessed in front of the nurses station. They started haranguing us for his records once he left and dramatically improved when drugs with known interactions were stopped.

They have never shown care to anything in my view, but smearing us, taking our money and not caring about children an what they have done.

We find them vile and hurtful to this day and our opinion only worsens with each lie we refute with evidence, or when we get comments from health care consultants with psychiatric backgrounds claiming to know them as a long time patient.

I can be very nice and reasonable. I encourage Ratchett to find the tape from my city debate last year. Hardly what you have painted me to be.

 But they hopefully have found, attacking me, is not a good approach.  However, as always, I will leave the door open to discussion, should they wish to behave appropriately.


Oh, and ps Nurse Ratchet Oberstar. I have been formerly an endorsed union candidate , supported by the DFL, a long time dem, helped the say NO campaign hardcore, and hold a flag flown over the US capital on my son's birthday, sent to us by a family friend and democractic Congressman. And my Godfather is a former state Dem party leader. I used to be a reporter and helped blow the lid off a company in Minnesota that overcharged thousands just pennies at a time, but boy did it add up. So if you think I say you may, or it could be possible, be getting political favors for partisan reasons, you got the wrong gal.
I interviewed Wellstone many times. And have been flattered, as I have moved on in life to have folks say my passion, integrity, morals and diligence remind me of him. I was on bed rest with my son in the hospital watching the news when he died. 
I cried that such a man would be lost, and whispered to by unborn that may never make it--I hope someday you grow to be like him. 
 I say it because I know my way around politics and money grubbers and am suspicious of the motives of Prairie Care. I say it because I feel you hurt my son and my family. It's my opinion. But I say it as a mom you never bothered to find out is kind, compassionate and charged up to protect her own and feels maybe an oversense of moral obligation, but feels strongly that no one else should feel like your facility made us feel. No child. No parent.

It was wrong. And parents should know, before they choose you. You may be the right choice for them. But if anything, perhaps they will learn to have you document, shop around and compare, and know the best advocate for their child is not you-it is them.

Free assessments. The old saying goes, there's nothing in life that's "free." 

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Prairie Care Patient Advocate or Comedian

On Prairie Care's website they define Steve White, "patient advocate" as:

Key to the role is friendly, unbiased, neutral, open communication with PrairieCare families, patients, outside practitioners and staff. 

The same website claims the priority is to help families concerning the quality of care and overall services.

Unbiased? Neutral? Helping families?

He works for them. He has written letters for Todd Archebold to the Attorney General denying responsibility and claiming calls were not returned. I responded with his own voice mail recorded where he said don't call me back.

Is that an neutral, unbiased patient advocate?

 Prairie Care didn't answer the Better Business Bureau at all, and they got a couple slaps on the knuckles with the Minnesota mental health Ombudsman, not us.They lawyered up when I laid out some problems and have treated us with gossip, red herrings and in my view bully tactics ever since. Even though I said straight out I wasn't interested in lawyers. They also complained to the AG in a response prepared by Steve White, Patient Advocate for Todd, that I said Todd was sexist. That's correct. They whined to the state about getting their feelings hurt. What happened to: I'm rubber you're glue?
 It's very junior high, in my view, but it's tactics I believe to throw us off the relevant facts, (and we've dealt with a lot of side tactics) which is our concerns about care, and our concerns about the bill being much larger than what we were told.
It seems we are constantly deflecting rumors and whines.

On the sexism thing, KEEPING IN MIND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING except my personal feelings about Todd Archebold. Actually, my personal feelings are even worse about him-but don't relate to facts. Well, that's my opinion. 
When Todd responded to my concerns with an irrelevant accusation that the mom missed a dose one day, I found it sexist. One, it had no relevancy to concerns about backpacks not being checked, sharp objects being found and medication interaction concerns, so I thought it was thrown in just to intimidate me. They also complained that I didn't increase his dose based on that same day he missed a dose. They now understand that increasing a dose based on incomplete information is not appropriate.
Two, we are a two parent household and yet only the mom got the blame. So yes, I thought that was sexist to assume mom is the only one to be held responsible for non-issues. That is the point where things went badly with them. But since I felt they were playing games and being bullies, avoiding issues like over-treatment, sharp objects found, etc..and already had lost faith in them, thought they were ripping me off at the cost of my child's health, etc....it's not a surprise when they chose to insult me for no related reason. I was not appreciative. To me, it confirmed all the lowest things I thought about them. And they were pretty low. But this is how they've behaved.

Back to the patient advocate. I was going to put up his picture, but didn't want any copyright issues. Then I was going to put one of John Hodgman, because there's a remarkable similarity-but I like Hodgman. So we will go without a picture.


I don't believe this guy is your friend, he is not unbiased or neutral. I am not sure how he could be and then take sides?  If there was someone working for you, in my opinion, I wouldn't have paid interest their own website says I shouldn't have to pay. My son wouldn't have been checked in to a program without seeing a psychiatrist first. They claim it's a step down, or when outpatient doesn't work. My child was never seen by a psychiatrist on an outpatient basis. Never. He was not deemed an emergency. And he was never seen by a psychiatrist. I wish we knew, but we were referred by our family doctor-and thought they would be OK. They may be for some-they were NOT for us. And in our view, have gone above and beyond to make it worse.

 I think they would have told me how much they cost and honored it, then taken my concerns about their care and pledge to work harder to keep kids safer.

 When you say 2000k for a 30 day stay and we are only there 14, you can scream up and down about my insurance, which I said we needed to verify before entering and they agreed and admit to verifying, but it is THEIR COSTS that I wasn't quoted beyond under 2k for a 30 day stay. My insurance isn't to blame for that. THEY ARE. I didn't know what their daily rate was, I just know they said and confirmed after talking to my insurance that it would be 2k for a full stay, which was supposed to be 30 days.

They led me to believe that I would pay out of pocket under 2k for 30 days and initially agreed to it--until I pointed out we only stayed for 14. Of course this was when things had started to go badly in our relations, in my opinion, due to Todd's choices to play games.

 So it needs to be adjusted to 14 days, or my opinion is--that's a blatant overcharge.

Why not adjust it and do the right thing? Why deal with agency after agency which makes me stronger each time? It's not a lot of money, but perhaps, like me, they are doing it on what they believe is principle?
Except, me is one family fighting for not feeling ripped off or being left with the impression  my child was used in a manner that was inappropriate. What's their motive to fight so hard to refuse to pay back the "alleged" overcharge?

I have an opinion that they are only refusing to refund it, because I hurt their feelings and they are acting out of hubris.
I think they don't like me and that's their reasoning.That's a poor reason. Personal feelings should be set aside.

 I think they know darn well it should be adjusted but they are mad at me now and stomping their feet like little toddlers screaming in a corner. That's my opinion-but the only explanation I can come up with for their childish behavior. Seriously, let's play gossip with the AG? I'm pretty sure only facts matter, not a game of telephone. What business would spend this much time and bad publicity just to have a mad parent feel they are even worse than what she thought? The only thing I can come up with is ego, childish behavior, uncaring, and under-equipped . An opinion, again, but it's all that I can understand to explain themselves.

Frankly, the fact that they put the "patient advocate" title to make it sound like they are on your side, or to even claim they are unbiased or neutral makes me sick. That's a fact, hack.

That's why again, if you decide this is the place-get it in writing. The only real advocate for your child is you.

I hope someday, Prairie Care at least takes down the unbiased, neutral claim.

If they ever decide to correct things with us--I would take this down.

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