Dive Brief:
- The need for psychiatric inpatient and outpatient services continues to grow, according to the latest annual survey from the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems released June 25. The survey's 2012 data were collected from NAPHS member hospitals and treatment centers in 2013.
- Inpatient hospital admissions, lengths of stay, and days of care for psychiatric services all increased between 2011 and 2012, the survey found. And the average number of outpatient psychiatric visits in 2012 climbed by 6.6% over 2011.
- By contrast, NAPHS members reported a lower number of admissions and a shorter average length of stay in residential psychiatric treatment facilities in 2012, compared to the prior year.
Dive Insight:
A USA Today special report in May described the U.S. mental health system as drowning from neglect. It said that states slashed $5 billion in mental health services, and eliminated at least 4,500 public psychiatric hospital beds, from 2009 to 2012. As Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., a child psychologist spearheading a national effort to improve the mental health system, told USA Today: "We have replaced the hospital bed with the jail cell, the homeless shelter and the coffin."
Against this backdrop, the latest survey by NAPHS, which represents behavioral health systems and organizations, seems to show Americans' growing need for such care. At NAPHS's annual meeting in March, Murphy urged the group's support for legislation (H.R. 3717) that he had introduced last December because it was clear that people are having a hard time accessing the right treatment at the right time. Among other things, the bill would change Medicaid policy to give adults with mental illness the same access to short-term, acute care hospitalization as other populations. A subcommittee held a hearing on the bill in April, but nothing has happened since then. NAPHS, along with two other groups, sent a joint letter June 20 urging congressional action on mental health reform this summer.
