AB Psych Consulting

“Protect yourself and your family from AB Psych. Go somewhere else. AB Psych inflicted more unnecessary pain on me than anything else ever has. This is not an exaggeration. I’m a completely different person now, all so that AB Psych can make a couple thousand dollars. I’ll never be able to recover. AB Psych specifically advertises multi-part “comprehensive” evaluations involving a parent/caretaker interview. You can see this on the Autism Society of Inland Empire, on their own website, and they confirm it directly when asked. However, in my case, they didn’t follow minimum industry standards, committed patient abandonment, and falsified records which covered everything up. On 7/13/2023, during an especially difficult time in my life, Dr. Anthony Benigno interviewed me for ~2hours for one of these evaluations. He did scattered portions of the ADOS2; nothing else. He came to a premature conclusion based only on harmful stereotypes about autistic children that he happily demonstrated throughout our meeting. No explanation was ever given for why so many corners were cut. In good faith, I send an email respectfully pointing out things that were missing from the evaluation, most notably that a parent/caretaker interview was never performed. (This interview is a minimum industry requirement.) I told him I still needed help. He lied about the nature of the interview, claiming that he didn’t need anything else, starkly contradicting industry standards and even his own advertisements. After he said “I'd like to check in to see if you're thinking about harming yourself. Are you currently at risk?” he abandoned me as his patient. There was no response and no direction whatsoever. He didn’t care what happened to me. I was left desperately trying to contact him multiple times, trying to schedule a followup, trying to get my medical records when my messages were just being ignored. I had no idea it was even possible for something like this to happen. It was completely unprovoked. I was not a “difficult” patient in any way. I only sent two polite emails with legitimate grievances before he chose abandonment. I never imagined I would be hurt like this when I was already suffering, and by someone that I trusted. Over a year later, after I had been independently diagnosed by a different provider, I finally saw the records for that evaluation. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The report was completely falsified. It claimed that a parent/caretaker interview was done! It contained fabricated observations from the CARS2-HF and ADOS2. The assistant who did half the interview was never mentioned. The MMPI was omitted without explanation. Massive portions of my self-report containing the principle reasons I was seeking help were omitted. These are not small accidental errors; these are completely false accounts of the evaluation. I obtained a screenshot of the file properties for this report on AB Psych’s system, and it had been modified on 9/10/2024 over a year after its alleged creation date of 8/3/2023. This is an absolutely unbelievable level of dishonesty. I didn’t discover all of this in the order that it happened. Because AB Psych refused to disclose records for so long, I didn't even realize they had been falsified. If you search for Administrative Hearings in which Anthony Benigno was a part, he has a reputation for using the ADOS to overturn regional center service access during administrative hearings. This isn't what the ADOS is supposed to be used for; it's not supposed to be the primary diagnostic tool. If you have been evaluated by Anthony Benigno, inspect your records for falsifications.”

“Such an awful psychiatric office, so neglectful. Just run the other way if you get recommended this office. They dont follow up, they forget to book appointments, I can't even get in touch with my psychiatrist. Just another case of a psychiatrist who lacks any empathy or patience with their patient. Anything you tell these people goes in one ear and out the other. I've tried explaining my situation to my psychiatrist countless times on what medication works best for me and he just won't take the time to hear me out. Absolutely will not listen.”

“I was seen in a very timely manner. The staff was very nice and accommodating. Testing was faster than they said which was very convenient.”

“For me it was a very nice experience, they treated me very well, I would definitely recommend it, the people were lovely”