The short answer: a four-week commitment is a significant amount of time, money, and trust, so it deserves a structured review rather than an impression from a glossy website. The twelve items below cover licensing, medical oversight, the actual daily structure, cost, and what happens after you leave. This article is educational and is not medical advice; whether a four-week residential program is appropriate for you or a loved one is a decision to make with a licensed physician or clinician.
Four weeks is long enough to notice patterns that a one- or two-week stay simply cannot reveal — how someone sleeps once the initial adjustment wears off, how a plan holds up once the novelty of a new environment fades, and how much progress survives the return home. It is also long enough that small gaps in a program's structure become visible: a week that starts with a detailed schedule and drifts into unstructured time by week three, or a medical team that is attentive at intake but harder to reach as the stay goes on. Reviewing a program properly means asking not just what happens on day one, but what a typical Tuesday looks like in week four.
It also helps to separate questions you can answer from a website from questions that require a direct conversation with the admissions team or a clinician. Licensing, published pricing, and general program descriptions are usually available in writing. Details like how your specific plan would be built, how the schedule flexes around setbacks, and what a realistic week-four conversation about extending or discharging looks like almost always require a phone call. Treat the website as a starting point, not the final source of truth, and be wary of any program that resists a detailed conversation before you commit financially.
1–3: Licensing, Oversight, and Who Actually Runs the Program
1. Who licenses the facility, and can it be verified? Ask for the specific regulator by name. In Mexico, health facilities are licensed by COFEPRIS, the federal health regulator, and that is a claim you can ask about directly rather than accept on faith.
2. Who is medically responsible for your care during the four weeks? Ask for the name and role of the physician overseeing the program, how often clients are examined, and how decisions about your plan are made and revised over the course of the stay.
3. Is the program built around a defined protocol, or a loose menu of services? A four-week stay works best when it follows a structured, phased approach. At Sanctuary Tulum, our residential programs are built on the Pouyan Method™, a proprietary trademarked protocol designed to unfold in stages across a multi-week stay.
A useful way to test this in a conversation is to ask an admissions coordinator to describe week one, week two, week three, and week four separately, in a sentence or two each. A program with a genuine phased structure will typically describe an early phase focused on stabilization and assessment, a middle phase built around the core clinical work, and a later phase oriented toward consolidation and planning for departure. A program without much structure will tend to describe the same handful of activities repeated across every week, which is a sign that the "four weeks" is really just a longer version of a shorter program rather than a plan designed around that specific length of stay.
It is also reasonable to ask how licensing verification actually works in practice — for example, whether the facility can provide a license number or registration detail you could look up independently, rather than only a statement that it is licensed. A program confident in its standing generally has no hesitation sharing this kind of detail, while vague reassurance without specifics is worth following up on before any deposit changes hands.
4–6: The Intake Process, Medication Policy, and Daily Structure
4. What does the intake and assessment process look like? Ask what happens in the first 48 hours: medical history, physical examination, laboratory work, and a written individual plan. A four-week program without a documented assessment at the start has nothing to measure progress against.
5. What is the written policy on current medications? No credible program should instruct you to stop a prescribed medication before arrival, and any adjustment during the stay should involve a physician. If benzodiazepines are involved, reduction should always be gradual and medically supervised, never abrupt, given the documented risks described in the FDA's boxed warning update on benzodiazepines.
6. Is there an hour-by-hour schedule you can review before booking? Ask for a real sample week, not a brochure list of therapies. Four weeks of unstructured time with occasional sessions is a different experience than four weeks of daily individual clinical work.
When you receive a sample schedule, look at how much of it is actually clinical versus recreational or free time. A schedule that looks full on paper but is mostly meals, leisure activities, and optional wellness offerings is not the same as a schedule built around individual sessions, physician check-ins, and structured group work. Neither approach is inherently wrong — some recovery work benefits from unstructured time to rest and reflect — but you should know which balance you are paying for before you arrive, rather than discovering it once the first week is underway.
It's also worth asking how the assessment findings from the first 48 hours actually translate into the schedule you receive. A program that can explain, for example, why your intake findings led to more individual sessions in week one and a different focus in week three is demonstrating that the plan is built from your specific situation. A program that hands every client the same printed schedule regardless of intake findings is telling you, implicitly, that the assessment may be more of a formality than a genuine input into your care.
7–9: Scope, Setting, and Emergency Planning
7. What conditions does the program treat, and what does it decline? Review the program's stated scope against your own history. Our issues we treat page is an example of the level of specificity worth expecting from any program you compare.
8. What is the physical setting, and how does it support four weeks of sustained work? A remote or overly social environment can work against a long stay. Consider whether the setting — privacy, climate, access to nature — genuinely supports four consecutive weeks of focus rather than serving as a backdrop for photographs.
9. What is the emergency plan if something changes medically? Ask about on-site emergency equipment, distance to the nearest hospital, and whether a physician is reachable overnight throughout all four weeks, not only during business hours.
Over four consecutive weeks, the odds of something ordinary happening — a stomach bug, a minor injury, a bad night's sleep that turns into several — are higher than during a shorter stay, simply because more time has passed. Ask how the program handles routine medical issues, not only emergencies: is there a nurse or physician who can be reached for something minor without it becoming a whole procedure? Programs that only describe their emergency protocol and have no clear answer for everyday medical questions may leave you managing small issues on your own for longer than is comfortable.
It is also fair to ask how the program balances privacy with safety in its physical setting. A secluded property has real benefits for focus and confidentiality, but seclusion should not come at the cost of a workable emergency response time. Ask for an honest estimate, in minutes, of how long it would take to reach the nearest hospital equipped to handle a serious medical event, and how the property is set up to stabilize someone in the meantime.
10–12: Cost, Extension Options, and Aftercare
10. What is included in the published price, and what typically costs extra? Ask for a written breakdown covering accommodation, meals, physician time, individual sessions, specific therapies, and transfers. Compare this against the published programs and pricing of any program you are evaluating.
11. How does the program handle an extension if four weeks isn't enough? Ask what an additional week costs, how availability works, and what clinical rationale would justify extending rather than simply continuing the same routine.
12. What does aftercare look like once you return home? Review whether follow-up contact is included, how often it happens, and whether the program coordinates with a physician or therapist near you. Four weeks of intensive work benefits from a plan for the weeks that follow.
Cost conversations are easier when both sides use the same categories. Ask the program to break out accommodation, food, physician and clinical time, named therapies, transfers, and any optional add-ons as separate line items, and request the same breakdown from any other program you're comparing. A quote that bundles everything into a single number is harder to compare fairly and can hide meaningful differences in what is actually delivered for the price.
On extensions, ask what triggers the conversation in the first place. Is it a scheduled check-in around week three where your clinical team and you jointly review progress, or does the topic only come up if you or your family raise it? A program with a thoughtful extension process usually builds that review into the schedule rather than leaving it to chance, and can describe in advance roughly what an additional week would cost and how quickly it could be arranged if needed.
Finally, on aftercare, ask what "coordination with a physician near you" actually means in practice — is it a summary letter sent once, a scheduled call between the program's clinical staff and your home provider, or ongoing check-ins over a period of weeks or months? The more specific the answer, the more likely the aftercare plan is a real part of the program rather than a line in a brochure.
A Short Review Checklist
- Named licensing regulator and country of licensure
- Named physician responsible for oversight, with an examination schedule
- A documented, phased protocol rather than an unstructured menu
- Written medication policy, with no instruction to stop anything before arrival
- An hour-by-hour sample week, in writing
- Stated scope of conditions treated and declined
- Emergency and hospital-transfer procedure
- Itemized inclusions and likely additional charges
- A written aftercare plan with defined contact points
Reviewing these twelve items before committing gives you something concrete to compare across programs. To go deeper, read what to expect during a luxury rehab stay or reach our team directly through the contact page.
Educational content only. This article does not diagnose, treat, or replace care from a licensed physician, and nothing here is a promise of any particular outcome. Never start, stop, or change a prescribed medication without medical supervision.
