Psychiatric care has spent decades if not centuries, in darkness, with bigotry, bias, torture and even imprisonment as punishments. As a healthcare ethics keynote speaker, healthcare ethics consultant and book author, while I celebrate advances in psychiatry, I am not always convinced that practitioner are uniformly ethical. Unfortunately, a case has recently emerged in Arkansas, in particular the mental health unit at Northwest Medical Center, that very much bothers me.
Emotionally overwhelmed
In 2022, a patient voluntarily checked himself into the facility.
According to writers Laura Strickler and Stephanie Gosk (July 23, 2023):
“Mental health patients in Arkansas can be held against their will for 72 hours if they are deemed a danger to themselves or to others. But to keep them any longer than that, a medical provider must file a court petition and get the consent of a judge.”
However, in the case of this patient, he was admitted, taken into a locked unit for four days, received no medical treatment and essentially held against his will. It took a court order, the help of his husband and a nurse to get him released. He was released about 20-minutes after the court order was received. What happened to this man?
Dr. Brian Hyatt is a well-known psychiatrist and the physician who was in charge of the psychiatric unit and in fact, he is the chair of the board that disciplines physicians.
“But he’s now under investigation by state and federal authorities who are probing allegations ranging from Medicaid fraud to false imprisonment…the second time in two months that a patient was released from Hyatt’s unit only after a sheriff’s deputy showed up with a court order, according to court records.”
Running a Medicare Scam?
In fact, as the details of this alleged false imprisonment have come to light, cries of a scam are coming to light.
The patient “and at least 25 other former patients have sued Hyatt, alleging that they were held against their will in his unit for days and sometimes weeks. And Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office has accused Hyatt of running an insurance scam, claiming to treat patients he rarely saw and then billing Medicaid at ‘the highest severity code on every patient,’ according to a search warrant affidavit.”
He has resigned from his duties, though he insists he will continue to defend himself from allegations.
“Northwest Medical Center in Springdale ‘abruptly terminated’ Hyatt’s contract in May 2022, according to the attorney general’s search warrant affidavit…in April, the hospital agreed to pay $1.1 million in a settlement with the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office. Northwest Medical Center could not provide sufficient documentation that justified the hospitalization of 246 patients who were held in Hyatt’s unit, according to the attorney general’s office.”
The hospital has not admitted any wrongdoing and Hyatt has assembled a legal team. The team of course, claims his outstanding record of treating patients.
However, what is clear is that during the period in which those 246 patients were held, it seems as though the hospital expanded its beds set aside for mental health from 25 to 75.
“The claims to Medicaid and Medicare, as well as to private insurance, surged, according to the Arkansas attorney general’s search warrant affidavit.”
In addition to his private practice, Hyatt was making about $1400 per day from the hospital psychiatric facility. The fees were said to be for daily contact with patients, however after surveillance tapes were made available it appears as though Hyatt had virtually no contact with anyone.
As this alleged scam has unraveled, more patients and lawyers have come forward. As a healthcare ethics keynote speaker, healthcare ethics consultant and book author, I can only say at this point that unless Hyatt’s defense team has a body of information in rebuttal of the patients, he is in serious trouble.
Often, psychiatric patients have little in the way of sophistication or help to defend themselves. They must instead rely on the help and trust of good people; professionals and staff but suppose the very people who are to offer assistance, are themselves scam artists?
Unethical behaviors in healthcare are not all that uncommon but this scam is particularly disturbing as it brings us back to the dark ages of mental health care.
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS!
