Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)

A Partial Hospitalization Program is structured day treatment. You attend clinical programming during the day, several days a week, and go home each evening. It is the most intensive level of mental health care that does not involve sleeping in a hospital.

Golden Coast Rehab is a contracted provider of Specialty Mental Health Services (Partial Hospitalization Program and Intensive Outpatient Program) for the County of San Diego, Behavioral Health Services, under County Contract 575462. PHP serves adults 18 and older whose primary condition is a mental health condition.

One boundary we state plainly: our PHP is a specialty mental health service only. There is no substance use PHP at Golden Coast Rehab. Substance use care is provided at the detox, outpatient, intensive outpatient, and medication-assisted treatment levels under our DHCS certification 370254AP — see addiction treatment programs.

Who PHP is for

PHP fits when weekly therapy is not enough and a hospital bed is not necessary. In practice, that usually means one of three situations:

• Stepping down from a hospitalization. The weeks right after discharge carry the highest risk of relapse and readmission. PHP fills that gap with daily structure and close clinical follow-up.
• Preventing a hospitalization. Symptoms have escalated to where daily life has stopped working, and daily treatment can turn that around without an admission.
• Outpatient care has plateaued. You have been in weekly therapy, doing the work, and it has not been enough intensity to move the symptoms.

What a day looks like

Days are built around group programming, with individual therapy and psychiatric appointments scheduled through the week. Groups include process work, skills training such as DBT and CBT skills, psychoeducation, and time on the practical things that fall apart during a mental health crisis — sleep, routine, medication, and the conversations waiting at home. Where home itself is unstable, we pair PHP with housing support so the step-down has somewhere solid to land.

You will be in a room with other adults working on the same things. For a lot of people that turns out to be the part that matters most, after months of assuming they were the only one.

The PHP schedule

Programming runs 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific time, with a break between the two blocks. Which days you attend is set at intake around your clinical needs and reviewed as you progress. Telehealth is available, and whether any part of your care happens by video is decided with your clinical team.

As of July 2026 the program is staffed at two clinicians for every five clients, a ratio we review as the program grows. It is the reason groups stay small enough that a clinician notices when you are having a bad week rather than hearing about it two weeks later.

How long PHP lasts

Length is clinical, not fixed. A typical stay in PHP runs around six weeks, though your treatment team decides the actual length based on how you are doing rather than holding you to a number. The goal from day one is a step down to IOP and then to weekly outpatient care. Progress is reviewed with you regularly, and you are told where you stand rather than left guessing.

Conditions treated in this program

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Bipolar disorder
• PTSD and trauma
• OCD
• ADHD, most often alongside another condition
• Borderline personality disorder
• Schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders

Where a substance use disorder is also present, it is treated in our separately certified addiction programs by the same clinical team — see co-occurring disorders.

Getting in

It starts with a call and a clinical assessment. If PHP is the right level of care, we schedule your start and tell you exactly what to bring. If it is not — if you need residential or inpatient care we do not provide — we will say so directly and help you find it. See how admissions works.

Coverage and cost

If you have Medi-Cal in San Diego County — any of the four managed care plans — this program can be covered at no cost to you. Specialty mental health services are administered by San Diego County Behavioral Health Services rather than by your managed care plan, which is why your plan name does not decide where you get this care. Details on our Medi-Cal page.

Call (858) 925-8589 — answered 24 hours a day — and we will check your eligibility with you. In a crisis, the San Diego County Access and Crisis Line is available around the clock at 1-888-724-7240.