Residential treatment centers put profits over care, Senate finds

Children in residential treatment facilities are at risk for sexual abuse, dangerous physical restraints and overmedication, a landmark Senate report reveals.

Children in residential treatment facilities run by some of the country’s largest behavioral health companies are at risk for sexual abuse, dangerous physical restraints and overmedication, problems compounded by weak oversight and a system that “optimizes profit over the wellbeing and safety of children,” a Senate committee reported Wednesday.

The companies that were investigated rely on per diem payments from Medicaid and other government sources to treat the young people in their custody, many of whom have developmental disabilities or are in foster care, but the companies often pack the facilities to capacity and “regularly fail to hire adequate numbers of qualified staff,” the report found. Those flaws are “endemic to the operating model” of the companies, which “treat children as payouts,” the report says. 

The Senate Finance Committee released the landmark report Wednesday ahead of a hearing into its findings, the result of a two-year investigation examining four major operators of residential treatment facilities for children: Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare, which are for-profit companies, and Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, a nonprofit organization.

The report found “rampant civil rights violations,” including the overuse of seclusion and of “chemical restraints,” injections intended to keep children calm, even when they were already relaxed or cooperative. 

The bulk of the 130-page report documents maltreatment and violations at the facilities. The majority are pulled from incidents at facilities run by Universal Health Services and Acadia, which are publicly traded corporations, and include graphic allegations of sexual assaults by staff members against children. The report said there were “numerous” accounts of residential treatment staff members’ “dragging or throwing” children in their care, and pushing them into fences, walls and furniture,” based on the companies’ records.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/residential-treatment-centers-senate-report-rcna155177

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