{"id":4502,"date":"2025-01-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=4502"},"modified":"2025-01-25T10:21:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T16:21:30","slug":"end-the-fraud-and-abuse-of-involuntary-psychiatric-detentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2025\/01\/27\/end-the-fraud-and-abuse-of-involuntary-psychiatric-detentions\/","title":{"rendered":"End the Fraud and Abuse of Involuntary Psychiatric Detentions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Research indicates psychiatric confinements against a person\u2019s will have been increasing at three times the rate of the increase in population.\u00a0 Investigations and U.S. Justice Department complaints have alleged that patients have been held and their insurance billed unnecessarily.<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0CCHR National Affairs Office<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has resolved, as a major focus of its national efforts in 2025, to raise awareness of the abusive and costly practice of detaining people against their will in psychiatric facilities, with the goal of ending the practice.  CCHR is a mental health industry watchdog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State laws on psychiatric detentions vary in the U.S., but nearly all states allow involuntary inpatient civil commitments, evaluation and treatment of individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others.  However, this determination is completely subjective, which opens the potential for fraud and abuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCHR chapters around the world have for years complained to the proper authorities on behalf of individuals reporting to the organization that they were wrongly committed to a psychiatric facility, forced to take psychiatric drugs, held for long periods of time, traumatized by circumstances in the facilities, and released in worse condition than when they were first detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expos\u00e9s of the practice have also appeared in the press.  A recent investigation<\/a> by reporters at the New York Times<\/em> focused on Acadia Healthcare, one of the largest chains of for-profit behavioral health facilities in the U.S., and concluded, \u201cAcadia has lured patients into its facilities and held them against their will, even when detaining them was not medically necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acadia allegedly maximized insurance billing by using various excuses to continue holding patients, sometimes until their insurance coverage ran out.  Acadia reportedly charges as much as $2,200 a day for some patients.  With the bulk of Acadia\u2019s revenue coming from government insurance plans, including Medicaid and Medicare, taxpayers are footing the bill for most of these detentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, Acadia agreed<\/a> to pay $19.85 million to settle allegations that the company knowingly submitted false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE for medically unnecessary services for patients it improperly admitted to its facilities and patients held for excessive lengths of stay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, in 2020 another of the largest U.S. chains of for-profit psychiatric facilities, Universal Health Services, agreed<\/a> to pay $117 million to settle Justice Department allegations that included billing for medically unnecessary inpatient admissions and keeping patients longer than medically necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence shows that involuntary commitment has become far more prevalent in recent years.  A 2020 study<\/a> at the UCLA School of Public Affairs found that in the 22 states which provided civil commitment data for the five-year period ending in 2016, the states\u2019 average yearly involuntary detention rate increased at three times the rate of their average population growth.  It has been estimated<\/a> that four of every ten admissions to psychiatric facilities are involuntary, a figure that reportedly rose by 27% over the last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increased risk<\/a> of suicide in the period following discharge from psychiatric confinement is well recognized, with the risk even greater<\/a> for those who are admitted to psychiatric facilities against their will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries to end coercive mental health practices.  \u201cPeople subjected to coercive practices report feelings of dehumanization, disempowerment and being disrespected.  Many experience it as a form of trauma or re-traumatization leading to a worsening of their condition and increased experiences of distress,\u201d WHO advised<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is dedicated to ending this abusive practice.  \u201cThe power of a psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner to deprive individuals of their liberty based on purely subjective evaluations, which will always have the potential for abuse and which research has shown to be harmful to patients, must stop,\u201d said Anne Goedeke, president of the CCHR National Affairs Office.  \u201cThis will be a major focus for us in 2025, as we work to restore human rights to the field of mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research indicates psychiatric confinements against a person\u2019s will have been increasing at three times the rate of the increase in population. Investigations and U.S. Justice Department complaints have alleged that patients have been held and their insurance billed unnecessarily. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Research indicates psychiatric confinements against a person\u2019s will have been increasing at three times the rate of the increase in population.\u00a0","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[154,28,58,64,21,207],"class_list":["post-4502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","tag-coercive-psychiatry","tag-fraud","tag-human-rights","tag-involuntary-commitment","tag-suicide","tag-who"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-1aC","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}