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Lifting the veil on psychiatric hospital joint ventures
Nonprofit hospital systems are opening psychiatric hospitals to help the growing number of people suffering from mental health problems. But in many instances, those psychiatric hospitals are actually being run by troubled for-profit companies, and this fast-spreading model is putting unsuspecting patients and workers in dangerous environments, my colleague Tara Bannow reports in a new deeply reported investigation.
Nonprofits like Ascension, Geisinger, Trinity, and Henry Ford are pursuing joint ventures with Acadia Healthcare and Universal Health Services, the largest psychiatric hospital chains in the country. Acadia and UHS both have checkered histories of understaffing and undertraining workers at their hospitals, which have led to numerous lawsuits and government settlements.
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