Locked On The Psych Ward

Lock them in. Bill their insurer. Kick them out. How scores of employees and patients say America’s largest psychiatric chain turns patients into profits.  

Samantha Trimble Rosalind Adams / BuzzFeed News

On a cool October evening in 2012, Samantha Trimble walked into the lobby of Millwood Hospital, a low-slung brick building on the side of a road in Arlington, Texas, seeking a free mental health assessment.

A few weeks earlier in the AP world history class Trimble taught, after a kid started acting childish, she put a diaper on his head — something she admits was a bad idea. When administrators heard about it, she was escorted off the property. Worried for her job and her ability as a single mother to support her daughter, she visited her doctor’s office in tears. A physician assistant asked if she wanted to talk to someone at Millwood.

Just after 8 p.m. that evening, a counselor at Millwood asked Trimble if she was having suicidal thoughts. With her pastor beside her for moral support, she replied, “Well, who hasn’t had suicidal thoughts?” She said she had no intention to kill herself but joked, “It’s Texas, it isn’t that hard to get a gun.” They all laughed, she recalled. She said she had no idea that the counselor characterized the line as a plan to commit suicide.

Nor did she know, she later testified in a deposition, that the dozen or so forms he gave her were anything other than standard doctor’s-office paperwork. She signed them and waited for her counseling session.

It was nearly 11 p.m. by the time a staff member walked her down a long hallway. She recalled being startled to see rooms that were filled not with desks but with beds.

A technician rifled through Trimble’s purse for sharp objects and then a nurse told her to strip down to her underwear. It was then, she said, that she realized the doors to the psychiatric ward had locked behind her.

Trimble, who has recently reached a settlement regarding her hospitalization, recalled shaking with fear and “deep, shameful humiliation” as the nurse examined her body, noting the location of any identifying marks. “All you can do,” Trimble said, “is stand there and let it happen.”

The nurse handed her a small cup of pills, and soon she was asleep.  (Continue Reading)

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Locked On The Psych Ward

Nursing Home or Graveyard

Ninety-six-years-old and suffering from dementia, was moved into a corporate-run nursing home in California. After only 21 days, he had already suffered severe dehydration and lost 5 pounds – the result of a nursing staff that had completely neglected to follow his well-established and doctor-ordered nutrition plans.

While the staff was too overworked to feed Mr. Furumura, they were under strict orders from the nursing home’s owner to give the 96-year-old excessive amounts of physical therapy. Surely food or water would have been more helpful, but the horrific truth of corporate-run nursing homes is that they make unimaginable sums of money from taxpayer-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The more “therapy” that homes administer, the better for the business’s bottom line. And best of all (for them): The state picks up the tab.

Such financial incentives lead many for-profit nursing home operators to give patients treatments they don’t need. In the case of Jack Furumura, not only was such rigorous therapy totally unnecessary, it was reckless and flat-out outrageous. After 3 weeks, he had to be discharged directly to a hospital. He died only a few weeks later.

Meanwhile, the nursing home received $600 from the state for each day they administered their therapy. All told, the Federal Insurance Program for the Elderly and Disabled paid $13,468.19 for Mr. Furumura’s “care” –– and he is only but one of hundreds of patients likely on similar regimens. Mr. Furumura’s case is, sadly, not unique — private homes rake in money for overworking and ultimately killing people they’re charged to protect. Nationally, private nursing homes overbill Medicare by at least $1.5 Billion every single year.

How is it possible that such heartless business tactics are being used in an industry that already profits billions? Why pick on an elderly population for a few extra dollars in a market that has no shortage of cash flow — and worse, in a market that capitalizes on vulnerability and death?   (Continue Reading)

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Nursing Home or Graveyard