The recent New York Times investigation into Acadia Healthcare’s treatment of psychiatric patients presents an alarming crisis within our nation’s mental health care system. The Times found that Acadia detains individuals in psychiatric care without a legal basis long after the individual is ready to return to the community. Their motive is profit, sometimes charging patients up to $2,200 per day. As a top executive at Acadia hospitals said, “If there were insurance days left, that patient was going to be held.”
This appalling practice is more than just a failure of one company – it’s a reflection of systemic neglect and exploitation of vulnerable populations that runs rampant within the mental health service system.
The allegations in the Times are consistent with Acadia practices highlighted in our 2021 report Desperation Without Dignity which revealed widespread abuse and neglect at similar for-profit residential treatment facilities for youth.
In June, the Senate Finance Committee held in-person hearings on youth residential settings that featured testimony from NDRN member agency Disability Rights Arkansas. In that testimony, DRA’s attorney described the ways Acadia manipulated Arkansas Medicaid regulations to create new facilities in the state for out-of-state residents. These practices, however, are not limited to any one state.
Disability Law Center of Utah’s advocacy, for example, contributed to the closing of Acadia-owned psychiatric hospital Highland Ridge. In a letter to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, DLC Utah noted that former Highland Ridge staff called the facility ‘The Rape Hospital’ “because of how often patients were sexually assaulted and how infrequently the staff reported these incidents to police.”
Psychiatric facilities are not prisons, but clearly some are being run that way, trapping individuals in a system that is more about dollars than health care while subjecting residents to unthinkable horrors. Imagine being held, against your will, for an arbitrary amount of time like some One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest nightmare. The traumatizing effects this must have on people with mental health disabilities are immeasurable and does not support this evidence-based truth: Treating people in the community with appropriate services is less expensive, more humane, and more effective than confining them in institutions.
It is incumbent upon regulators, lawmakers, and mental health advocates to take immediate action. While we are grateful to the NY Times for exposing this practice -media absolutely has a role in public safety – oversight is the job of the government agencies charged with that responsibility. This includes robust federal support for the Protection and Advocacy network to continue monitoring and investigating abuse and neglect in these facilities. We must hold these companies accountable and advocate for reforms that place patient rights and community-based services at the forefront of care.
