BOUNTIES ON THEIR HEADS –
Oct. 18, 2023 – But a yearlong Mother Jones investigation tells a different story, shedding light on a large, profitable, and often-overlooked patient base: foster kids.
Thousands of foster kids have been admitted in recent years to UHS’s psychiatric facilities, where they typically stay for weeks or months, sometimes leaving far worse off than when they arrived. Some of their claims echo allegations that have come up in damning government and mediainvestigations about UHS for years: that the facilities improperly use physical force and chemical restraints, fail to provide adequate treatment and staffing, admit patients who don’t need to be there to begin with, and bill insurance for unnecessary services over excessive lengths of time. (In a statement, UHS denied these allegations, pointing to its positive clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction scores.)
To UHS and its competitors, foster kids are “a gold mine,” says Ron Davidson, a psychologist who spent two decades investigating psychiatric facilities.
Foster children make for profitable patients for the same reasons they’re so vulnerable: There’s rarely an adult on the outside scrambling to get them out, and often, they don’t have anywhere else to go. Plus, Medicaid typically foots the bill.
