IMPORTANT UPDATE TO OUR PAHRUMP COMMUNITY

Why haven't you been able to reach us? Are we open or closed?

First, yes, we know this has been confusing and frustrating. We want to explain what has been happening.

On January 1, 2026, a major legislative change occurred that removed fee-for-service Medicaid for most rural Nevadans and expanded Medicaid Managed Care into rural Nevada. This was a major change in how Medicaid services are administered and which doctors/clinicians are allowed to see patients. And yes, unfortunately, the transition had a major impact on our program.

For approximately the first four to five months of 2026, The DeFilippo Project was shut down and not operational.The legislative change meant that all of our master's-level therapists were not allowed to continue seeing Medicaid clients while going through the new contracting and credentialing process. As a result, we lost OUR ENTIRE STAFF, including our front desk workers.

Only our Clinical Director (Dr. Pak) was allowed to continue seeing clients in rural Nevada and was able to continue providing limited services to certain existing and higher-priority clients. But one clinician cannot operate what was previously an entire community treatment program.

So why does Google sometimes say we're OPEN?

This has probably caused more confusion than anything else!

We have repeatedly updated our Google Business Profile to say that we are temporarily closed or operating with limited availability. Unfortunately, Google allows users to suggest changes to business information. Think of it a little like Wikipedia: we update the information, and then someone in the community sees cars in the parking lot or the lights on and reports to Google, “Nope, they're open!”

And technically, they're not completely wrong!

Our lights may be on. Our Clinical Director may be seeing an existing client. That does NOT mean we have therapists available to accept new clients.

That distinction has been extremely difficult to communicate.

Why haven't you answered my phone call?

We know this is frustrating, and we have seen the complaints and reviews.

The simple answer is: we haven't had the staff.

For much of 2026, our Clinical Director has essentially been the only worker available to provide services while also trying to keep the program operating. We simply have not had enough staff available to consistently answer and return the volume of telephone calls we receive, and we have not had clinicians available to assign new clients to.

We don't want anyone thinking that we're ignoring them or that we simply don't care.

We literally have not had therapists available to give you.

SilverSummit representatives have been in regular communication with our program and have acknowledged to us the difficulties we have experienced during this transition. Nevada's move to statewide managed care has involved significant changes for rural providers, including new contracting and credentialing processes.

THERE IS FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS!

As of September 2026, we finally had one additional therapist successfully make it through the credentialing process.

That may sound like a small thing, but after the year we've had, it is a very big step toward rebuilding our program.

We are continuing to work on getting additional therapists credentialed and back into the program. Our current goal is to begin expanding services again around December 2026. This is a goal rather than a guaranteed date because portions of the credentialing process are outside of our control.

Thank you, Pahrump.

We understand why people have been confused. You see our lights on. Google says we're open. Someone sees a car outside. Meanwhile, you call us and nobody calls you back.

We understand how bad that looks when you don't know what's happening behind the scenes.

So we wanted to finally put the explanation right here on the front page.

We're still here. We're rebuilding. And after an extremely difficult transition, we're finally beginning to get therapists credentialed again.

Thank you for your patience with us while we work toward getting The DeFilippo Project back to serving our community at full capacity.

— The DeFilippo Project