Occupational Health Services Drinking Driver Program

These people below must be attending another OHS in Mountain view because this place is beyond horrible. They will periodically call you up and claim there was an audit and that you owe money. After you pay it they will call you back a month later with a date earlier then the last discrepancy they found and extort you for more money. The girl that called me said that sometimes an audit gos in your favor and they refund money. How pathetic is the bookkeeping with the thousands of dollars and numerous erroneous extra fees that they charge everyone and they cant have accurate bookkeeping? Why are their books so messed up that you receive random calls about fees that they supposedly missed every month or so? Where does all this money go? They don’t even produce or manufacture anything. There equipment is so outdated that some of the films are from the 70s or 80s? I don’t know of any other institution that would get away with this nonsense! But if you dispute this ridiculousness you risk being pointed out and kicked out of the program so they utilize that to extort money from you. By the way, i have never heard of anyone, ever, at any time getting a call from OHS that they did an audit and found a favorable error in their favor. i have asked around and it has never happened. You cant go online and review your account or get any itemized report. They just pull numbers out of the sky, call you, and extort you for a payment.
What is funny is that they try to dress it up like they care. Some of the counselors their are extraordinary, kind, and compassionate human beings but they are unfortunately slaves to the same corporation that considers us all parts of its cash cow machine.
If you reside in Mountain View and consider this program for proximity reasons you should research other programs and reconsider. You will save $, time, and lots of frustration.
I wish it was possible to give this place 0 stars. It is exceedingly upsetting thinking about some fat corporate cat raking in a huge salary off of the misery and misfortune of so many souls.

I am reviewing this place solely based on all the reviews left before.
When you get a DUI, you have to complete a DUI course and you have to pay for it. You can go anywhere you would like and OHS actually provides a list of all the DUI programs in the area. In short, no one is forcing anyone with a DUI to complete the program at OHS. It is their choice. Smart people price compare across programs before signing up.
All details regarding fees for the program, missing classes, guests, refunds, and mistakes made by office staff are covered in orientation. From these reviews, it sounds like no one paid attention. They do not allow anyone who is not in the program in the building, even if it is just the lobby, for privacy and liability reasons. AKA someone you may know is there and does not want YOU to know they have a DUI just because you wanted to come with someone. They are entitled to their privacy. You have to pay for missing a class and cannot be late. Refunds are not processed by the people at this office. They are processed by HealthNet.
Cindy at the front desk is ¹⁰⁄₁₀ and Janet, a counselor, is incredibly down to earth and is a wealth of knowledge. She is so great with people also a ¹⁰⁄₁₀.
On top of that, DUI’s themselves cost the state a lot of money to process, not even ¼ of the program costs (any of them) make a dent in that amount.
Unless you were one of the few people who were approached by an officer for just sitting in your car and given a DUI, the only person to blame for having to attend the program is yourself.
Just a friendly reminder from all of the people who don’t want to die because someone decided it was OK to drive under the influence

I would give zero stars if I could. OHS’s practices are criminal, malfeasant, misfeasant etc. Make no mistake, the place is about profits and nothing else. They will take your money in an instant and take forever (or never) to return it.
In my case they erroneously dismissed me (it was about money of course– they wanted some that they weren’t entitled to). The dismissal prompted the DMV to re-​suspend my license, **AND** DMV also (because of OHS) imposed an interlock device restriction on my license so that I had to get a device (at **my expense paid monthly**) installed in my car just to get a *restricted* license. I also had to go back to court a hundred miles away in a place with no bus service that I now could not drive to in order to face a judge who was angry with me for being dismissed from the program (of course). When I went to apply for a job (I was unemployed) and they asked for my license to copy, they saw the restriction printed on the back «Restriction: To/​from work, IID device required,» which was there due to OHS’s malfeasance. Can you guess what happened? I didn’t get the job of course. Thanks again OHS.
Later on, OHS finally agreed to reverse their dismissal, to sent a letter to DMV and the judge explaining they had made a mistake. Although that helped my license issue (after months) I still was unemployed, more deeply in debt for having borrowed money from a friend to install and maintain the IID in her car, and much more.
After all of this I complained to the agency that oversees OHS, the CA Dept of Alcohol and Drug Programs. They sent an investigator. OHS told the investigator I was dismissed for a different reason. Liars! She apparently believed them and didn’t bother to check with me– just closed her case. I suspect OHS is paying off these people.
Health Net Inc., the company that owns OHS, spends ~$ 2.5 million a year lobbying legislatures to keep the laws in their favor, to maximize their profits, to make sure you have to pay them to stay out of jail, keep your license etc., to ***make sure that they still have the power as a private for profit corporation to send you to jail.*** They are preying on you.
Private, for-​profit corporations should NOT be doing this sort of stuff!!! It should only be government!!! There is a conflict of interest, abuse of power etc. OHS uses the threat of court and your license /​freedom /​livelihood to extract money from you.
I’m STILL trying to find closure to this.

I chose this place simply because it was closest to my house but i wish i had chosen something else. pay attention to how much they’re charging you and do not pay if you think their amount is wrong. i made that mistake because they threatened me with late fees and now i’m still waiting on my refund months later.
furthermore, they’re «education» classes are not so educational. i can’t count how many times i was told «facts» that seemed questionable so i did some research and found out they were false, or skewed, or in one instance a study that was known to be based on falsified data for years in the scientific community. anyway the instructor just seemed like she didn’t know what she was talking about. she was just reading off a script. i guess this probably doesn’t matter to some people (after all this class isn’t voluntary) but it irked me to see my classmates just eating this stuff up like it’s truth.

This is absolutely the worst place EVER. If you have a choice go somewhere else! The front desk has made repeated mistakes and have cost me time and money. Plus one lady at the front desk is a COMPLETE b*tch, unprovoked, and all the time.

These people are the WORST!
My boyfriend got a DUI and when we went into the lobby the first time to get him all set up the lady at the front counter was nice, and that was the last time any one was nice at this place.
After that he went to orientation, and then missed his first meeting because of a scheduling error. He realized this later that day and called them. They were OBNOXIOUS! They refused to answer any of his questions and simply stated that he was out of the program and they would put his paperwork into the dismissal process and that they would call him back later to ask him questions and see if he qualified for readmission. They never called. Never sent any mail. Nothing.
So he called them back, and again they refused to answer ANY of his questions over the phone, they stated that he should have or would be receiving mail from them — but wouldn’t say anything else. So we went down to their office.
The lady at the front counter became EXTREMELY angry when she found out that I was just there with him (I wasn’t trying to get into any meetings, we just wanted to know what he needed to do to either get back in the program or go back to court) She glared at me and said «YOU can’t be in here!» And I said «Really? We just wanted to ask a couple of.» She pointed at the door and told me that I had to leave IMMEDIATELY and that I was NOT allowed to be in there, ever, unless I was there for myself. It’s the freaking LOBBY, plus I’d been in there with him before and no one cared.
Surprise surprise they answered all of his questions that they refused to answer over the phone, and said that they would send him paperwork explaining everything he needed to do in about a week.
A month went by. No letter, no contact, nothing. So he called back. They were suddenly so shocked and helpful «You didn’t receive paperwork? Oh you just need to pay 30 $ to be re-​instated, no big deal».
A month and a half of people REFUSING to answer questions, telling me to get out of their lobby for no reason other than my mere presence, and failure to call us or send us any paperwork and it’s a 30 $ fee they needed, but no they couldn’t just tell us that over the phone.
About 3 days later we got the piece of mail, it had been dated over a month before and never sent.
He went to the classes and has had nothing good to say about any of them other than how completely pointless they are. He hasn’t drank in over 6 months. Plus they try to get you to sign up for AA when you complete the course, which is just more of the same BS.