Times Watchdog

Public Crisis, Private Toll: The hidden costs of the mental-health industry’s expansion

Washington state has approved or expanded 10 private psychiatric hospitals since 2012, promising to transform the way mental-health care is delivered in a state with a chronic shortage of treatment options. But these new institutions have failed patients in ways both known and unknown to regulators and all but invisible to the public.

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Earlier this decade, Washington had the third-highest rate in the nation of adults with a mental illness, and the second-highest rate for those whose illness interfered with major life activities. At the same time, a government survey ranked Washington’s inpatient psychiatric bed capacity almost last in the nation.This gap between need and specialized care has led to more patients waiting in facilities that aren’t equipped to treat them, and left nearly a quarter of adults with mental illness unable to get the help they needed.Yet one source of mental-health care has expanded rapidly: private psychiatric hospitals.State payments to five private psychiatric hospitals nearly tripled over five years, totaling almost $67 million in 2018.Seven such hospitals have been built or expanded in Washington since 2012. And when three more come online, they will have added more than 850 inpatient beds. All but one of the facilities are for-profit.Until 2012, state regulators hadn’t approved a new psychiatric hospital in years. What changed?As legal pressure mounted on Washington state to add psychiatric treatment beds, the expansion of Medicaid coverage and mental-health benefits created a potentially lucrative opportunity for health care companies.When all the approved psychiatric hospitals open, there will be almost three times as many beds in such facilities as there are in the psychiatric wings of medical hospitals.On paper, this expansion looks like a salve for Washington’s mental-health crisis.

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Community Health Plan of Washington temporarily stopped sending patients to Smokey Point Behavioral Hospital in Marysville after concerns were raised about care there. Then it called the state agency it works for, the Washington state Health Care Authority. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times, 2018)

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The entrance to Western State Hospital is seen Tuesday, April 11, 2017, in Lakewood, Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee toured the facility, the state’s largest psychiatric hospital, to get an update on its efforts to address safety problems that got it into trouble with federal regulators. Western State Hospital is at risk of losing millions in federal funds over health and safety violations that were discovered last year. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) OTK OTK

December 29, 2019 at 6:00 am

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https://projects.seattletimes.com/2019/inspection-reports-private-psychiatric-hospitals-washington-state/

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Monday, November 18, 2019. Dr. Jeff Sperring, CEO of Seattle Children’s Hospital talking about the latest Aspergillus mold problem at Children’s. 212141 (Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times)

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Public Crisis, Private Toll: The hidden costs of the mental-health industry’s expansion

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