Have you ever tried to get mental health care for a family member? I mean even with insurance.
My heart goes out to families whose children turn eighteen and suddenly doctors won't talk with them -- they're out of the loop. And if young patients won't seek or accept medical help, as one doctor told me today, "it has to go to a stalemate." The patient has to be found on the street or go over the line and be arrested - hopefully not shot in the process.
Even then, the patient will be lucky to get a few days of care before being sent on his way without adequate follow-up care.
What happened to our understanding that people with mental illnesses do things to show they want our help? Patients not mentally well enough to know where to seek health care and those who've give up are lost because help from someone else is intrusion. It's really messed up.
If you have a child with ADHD or Asperger's Syndrome, for example, don't expect to be able to be of much help after he or she turns 18. You're out of the picture. Really! I know that's hard to believe. But it's true.
You may be seen as an intrusion, an obstacle, or part of the problem, but you're not going to be a partner unless your child asks for you to be involved. If he thinks he is old enough to handle his own health care, or confused enough to believe so, hold on because you're in for a long, tough time of worry and frustration.
Since you can't help, the medical system will not serve his needs. They know such patients can't speak for themselves. They know you've been kept in the dark, so you can't do anything. So he'll get some attention and then off he goes - maybe to the streets because they don't have to call you.
You have to wonder if they keep this going so they can toss patients away whenever it suits. Surely psychiatrists somewhere must know this is wrong. Surely there must be some with the guts to speak out on behalf of patients who need help even if they don't ask and who need an advocate even if they don't know it.
With no one to advocate for patients, it's easy to abandon them and it saves money. The current system makes this possible. How about that for a nation with supposedly superior health care!
It's inhumane to say the least. And that, believe it or not, is even if you have insurance.
Dr. Reardon also blogs at bardscove.
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The mental Health laws are seriously stacked against the families of severely mentally ill adult loved ones, and as you point out Dr. Reardon, this is many times completely independent of the family's health insurance situation. Mental Hospitals have been closed or severely downsized in all 50 states. Administrators are under severe pressure due to bed shortages, a long waiting line, and the astronomical cost of inpatient treatment. Add to that , pressure from patients rights advocates, who routinely challenge involuntary treatment seemingly regardless of the consequences, and the point of least resistance for the mental health administrators many times boils down to just plain doing nothing.
The system is completely lopsided. Those who have the most interest in the welfare of the gravely mentally disabled- the families- are powerless in the system. Yet home is where the system sends these people- at least, until that time when it becomes too much, and the single working mother trying to care for a 13 year old, and a psychotic 19 year old has to make Sophie's Choice. And when these people wind up wandering the streets and living under bridges, the rest of the population wonders "Where do these people come from?"
Robert (Joe) Bruce
I am a 21 year old college student who, without access to insurance through either of my parents (and their employers), my own employer, my school or my state, sought assessment and have begun receiving treatment for ADHD. All of the ADHD students I've met since are, fully capable intelligent adults. I realize that we are not the only population mentioned in your article, but it stings.
The medical system that we currently have is broken. It maximizes shareholder profits at the expense of the health of the people, but this tragedy, this outrage should absolutely not be framed in terms of giving parents more access to their adult children's private data unless it has been legally determined that the child is not competent. Even under those circumstances it sets a dangerous precedent for further invasions of the privacy of wider groups.
Try being an adult, finally out of the house of nightmares, and various social workers and assisted-living managers call you to try to "do something" about curbing your parent's behavior -- but they won't tell you what her diagnosis is because of "patient confidentiality."
It has been awhile sinc I last droped in on ya, sorry but I've slowed downd quite a it, anyway your still my gal you "GET IT" and that's whay I will always heart you. Thank you for you... Agape always dapper
The U.S. is currently a very scary place for those who cannot take care of themselves.
should have
their minds
EXAMINED!
TOO RICH TO BE RESPONSIBLE
for decent health care for their clients?
DEPORT THE RICH.
Let them go live in Monaco, Geneva and Dubai with their $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
After attending a NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Family-to-Family Education class I learned that my daughter had not simply fallen through the cracks of the mental health system but that the system was set-up to ignore those with a severe mental illness until they were a "clear and present danger to self or others" as required by Pennsylvania's Mental Health Procedures Act of 1976.
Thankfully an organization called the Treatment Advocacy Center exists, http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/ which has been my main source of advice in advocating for a change to our out-dated law. One of our state senators has proposed a new assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) law, Senate Bill 251, modeled after the successful Kendra's Law in New York.
Thank you to Dr. Readon for bringing this mostly ignored issue to light. Sadly, the fall-out from the neglect of those with untreated mental illness is that most of these very vulnerable people are now either homeless or incarcerated. Laws do need to be changed, and the outpatient commitment laws, such as Kendra's Law, our proposed SB 251, and the law just signed by New Jersey's Governor Corzine this week, are the way to ensure timely, compassionate treatment in the community.