Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
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Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#2 You mean like private prisons that trump up charges to extend inmate sentences for profit???
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#3A great example of how for-profit healthcare (or anything else) can fail.
Corporate entities have an obligation to do whatever they can legally get away with in order to maximize profits. They do not have a prerogative to benefit society, or help human beings apart from what they choose to do.
Every country has to decide whether the benefits of privatisation of the various services outweighs the societal costs caused by private entities having different goals.
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#4This is an appropriate article to comment with the Rosenhan Experiment. From Wikipedia: The study involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients" who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.
After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had no longer experienced any additional hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release. The average time that the patients spent in the hospital was 19 days. All but one were diagnosed with schizophrenia "in remission" before their release. [1]
This article also makes me think Wells Fargo-esque pressure from above is to blame, but won't be heavily punished by the authorities. At least in the WF case two executives had to pay back $75m. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/04/10/w...
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#5Looking forward to charges of fraud and, where applicable, imprisonment under false pretenses[1], resulting in stiff prison sentences for those responsible.
[1]: The notion that psychiatric hospitals should be able to keep people there against their will is extremely suspect. A possible exception is a patient being convicted in court of an actual crime, and sent there instead of to prison by the legal system. Even then, the very likely possibility that the hospital staff would extend the patients stay indefinitely would necessitate the judge setting some upper bound on how long the patient can be kept against their will.
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#6My grandma was kept alive an extra 10 days to let her medicare run out in rural Oklahoma. I'm not sure of all the details because it was 15 years ago and I was a teenager, but my dad said medicare stopped paying for some level of care and then they let her die (she was a vegetable from a stroke).
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#7Private prisons profit from recidivism (rather than rehabilitation) just as psychiatric "hospitals" do.
Though at least in a private prison, you know how long your sentence is, it is an objective measure.
When imprisoned in a mental asylum, you don't know how long you will be in there for, because your release is dependent on the subjective whim of those who stand to profit from the continued occupancy.
There are no objective tests to determine whether or not a person is mentally ill, and this further exacerbates the existing conflict of interest.
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#8Looking forward to charges of fraud and, where applicable, imprisonment under false pretenses[1], resulting in stiff prison sentences for those responsible. [1]: The notion that psychiatric hospitals should be able to keep people there against their will is extremely suspect. A possible exception is a patient being convicted in court of an actual crime, and sent there instead of to prison by the legal system. Even th…
Don't kid yourself. Nobody will be punished for this. Well, maybe some little people who were instructed to do the deed.
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#9A great example of how for-profit healthcare (or anything else) can fail. Corporate entities have an obligation to do whatever they can legally get away with in order to maximize profits. They do not have a prerogative to benefit society, or help human beings apart from what they choose to do. Every country has to decide whether the benefits of privatisation of the various services outweighs the societal costs caused…
This is a problem localized to psychiatric care, general healthcare has obligations and quality controls, and it doesn't fail in the ways you describe. The fact that medical practitioners take out enormous malpractice insurance policies proves that there is accountability, at least if you're considered sane enough to press charges.
For psychiatric care specifically, the problem is that the patient has no agency by definition. The patient can not complain about the hospital, because people think he's too crazy to take care of himself.
Re: Feds probing psychiatric hospitals for locking in patients to boost profits
#10A great example of how for-profit healthcare (or anything else) can fail. Corporate entities have an obligation to do whatever they can legally get away with in order to maximize profits. They do not have a prerogative to benefit society, or help human beings apart from what they choose to do. Every country has to decide whether the benefits of privatisation of the various services outweighs the societal costs caused…
Public psychiatric institutions suffer from the same problem though, because the salaries of the employees running the institution are dependent upon a consistent occupancy.