[Opinion] Why the Shirtless Man Shouting on the Street Isn’t in the Hospital ( southseattleemerald.com )

“Follow the money” helps us figure this out. Inpatient hospital beds generate two bills: facility fees and professional fees. In most public hospitals, both go to support the whole operation. But not at UW Medicine, which operates a separate company, UW Physicians (aka Association of University Physicians), that uses the professional fees to pay bonuses to physician leadership, doubling and tripling (the former dean) their State-paid compensation to over $1 million annually for several. So a Harborview neurosurgeon earning $657,000 in his State paycheck collected another $430,000 from the private company, as well as $127,000 in “other compensation.” Altogether, 831 UW Medicine leaders earn at least $100,000 each extra from this company that collects, then redistributes professional fees paid for subspecialty surgery and intensive care on mostly private insurance patients.

iHUNTcriminals , (edited )

The push for mental health in America makes me scared.

I doubt it will ever be done right. I doubt it will be anything more than drugging people to make babysitting them easier.

You it will just turn into another way to imprison people for money.

It’s sad I have no faith at all in America.

protist ,

I work in the field, and genuinely wonder what you think the solution is? The most visible individuals suffering from chronic mental illness and often chronic homelessness frequently don’t voluntarily engage any kind of help, whether that’s medication, housing, income, etc. When people are brought inpatient involuntarily, they may be legally mandated to take medication, and we often see their level of functioning improve significantly over time, but their insight doesn’t, and they stop meds as soon as they leave and fall back into the same pattern.

reversebananimals ,

I doubt it will be anything more than drugging people to make babysitting them easier.

This is why we don’t lock up “the shirtless man shouting in the street” the first place.

We used to lock that guy up, and the places we put them were horrific. In the 70s, American society collectively decided it was better to let them back out on the street than to risk locking up sane people against their will.

Its a dilemma. We either funnel them into a horrific, underfunded system (our government will not realistically produce anything better), probably also catching a few sane people in the system along the way, or we let “the shirtless man shouting on the street” stay on the street.

reversebananimals ,

This is the wikipedia page about why we no longer involuntary commit people: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

And for a fictional portrayal, the go-to is “One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest”: en.wikipedia.org/…/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nes…

e_t_ Admin ,

But he’s on his own since so many inpatient mental health facilities and beds were taken away nationwide when bad conditions were revealed during the 1970s.

Thanks, Reagan

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