New York Times investigation finds Acadia breaks law by holding patients

Acadia Healthcare has lured patients into its psychiatric hospitals and held them against their will, even when detaining them was not medically necessary, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Katie Thomas of New York Times report, citing the paper’s own investigation. In at least 12 of the 19 states where Acadia operates psychiatric hospitals, dozens of patients, employees and police officers have alerted the authorities that the company was detaining people in ways that violated the law, according to records reviewed by The Times. Some patients arrived at emergency rooms seeking routine mental health care, only to find themselves sent to Acadia facilities and locked in, the Times says. Acadia employees told the paper that the company uses a host of strategies to persuade insurers to cover longer stays, including exaggerating patients’ symptoms, tweaking medication dosages, then claiming patients needed to stay longer because of the adjustment, and arguing that patients are not well enough to leave because they did not finish a meal.