How we research, write, and review every article

Program Director & Clinical Director

Matthew Beck, LMFT, is Program Director and Clinical Director at Golden Coast Rehab. A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with more than a decade in substance use and mental health treatment, he oversees clinical delivery, supports staff, and holds the standard of care across programs. He has spent over ten years working directly with individuals and families affected by addiction and co-occurring mental health conditions. His therapeutic approach draws on person-centered, cognitive behavioral, and solution-focused work, meeting clients where they are while building practical tools for the long term. Matthew is open about his own recovery, and that experience informs how he runs a program: accountable, unsentimental about what the work requires, and unwilling to treat people as cases.

Medical Director

Dr. Sanjai Mathew Thankachen, MD, is Medical Director at Golden Coast Rehab. A board-certified psychiatrist, he provides clinical oversight of psychiatric care, medication management, and the medical side of co-occurring treatment, with an emphasis on patient safety and evidence-based practice. He completed his medical training at Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences in India and a psychiatry residency at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in New York, with clinical rotations at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. He has held Medical Director and Associate Medical Director roles at hospitals and partial hospitalization programs across California, working with mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use disorders, and complex dual-diagnosis presentations. His background also includes psychiatric research, including work with the Schizophrenia Research Unit at Stanford University and contributions to the CATIE and CAFE studies.

Founder

Dean Scaduto is the Founder of Golden Coast Rehab. He started it after losing his cousin and more than fifty friends to addiction, an experience that made the gaps in access, speed, and quality of treatment impossible to ignore. He has spent years building and scaling addiction treatment programs across multiple states, working closely with clinicians, operators, and families, which gave him a clear view of where conventional models fall short. At Golden Coast Rehab his focus is on removing barriers to care and building pathways that meet people where they are rather than where the system expects them to be, which is a large part of why this program is built around Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Outside Golden Coast Rehab, Dean leads a healthcare-focused digital marketing firm and serves as a Techstars All-Star Mentor. He holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree in negotiation and conflict resolution from Columbia University.