By Alan Judd and Andy Miller in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Georgia is preparing to turn over the management of much of its beleaguered mental health care system to for-profit companies, even though similar private programs in other states haven’t demonstrated that they could save money or improve care.

According to public documents obtained by the AJC, the state plans to privatize at least one of its seven psychiatric hospitals by next year and turn over management for sections of others. Plans also call for expanding community services.

A Florida state auditing agency found that privatization resulted in little or no improvement in patient outcomes or cost savings. North Carolina has wasted up to $400 million on funding unqualified private firms, according to state audits and news reports, and Pennsylvania has shelved plans after questions about the impact on hospital employees and cost savings emerged.

“Oh, man – have they not been looking at what problems we’ve had?” said Debra Dihoff, executive director of North Carolina’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “I can’t believe they would use us as a model.”

See previous posts here and here and here.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 7:50 am and is filed under hospitals, institutionalization, mental health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.