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In the U.S., where
40% of psychiatrists face malpractice suits and a mental health practitioner
is jailed every 48 hours, CCHR helps to unearth and prosecute criminal
cases, such as that of Carl Lichtman, a New Jersey psychologist. Lichtman
defrauded 36 insurance carriers of $3.5 million for therapy sessions that
never took place.
CHAPTER
FIVE Exposing Criminal Psychiatric Abuse
Sexual abuse of emotionally fragile patients generates the growing outrage against
psychiatrists and psychologists� and, traditionally, they have been subjected
to the least accountability because the perpetrators are often protected by
their peers. It is a damning commentary on mental health �professionals� that
an astounding 10% of them admit to sexually abusing both their adult and child
patients. According to one study, the figure could be as high as 25%.
CCHR has exposed such crimes and campaigned to bring the perpetrators to justice,
especially mental health practitioners who rape or sexually abuse their
patients, but hide behind their roles as therapists to mitigate their
crimes.
In the course of its investigations into patient complaints, CCHR also discovered
massive mental health care fraud schemes such as:
Billing insurance companies for sexually abusing a patient and calling it �therapy�;
Charging an insurance company for mental health therapy when the patient is
in a coma or dead;
Providing daily �group therapy� sessions that consisted of giving away free
cups of coffee, socializing and listening to music;
Some elderly patients were billed for watching television or playing bingo.
Speaking about mental health fraud by psychiatrists and psychologists, Paul
McDevitt, a Massachusetts counselor, said, �These people have no ethics
at all. They�re morally bankrupt. They�re like the grave robbers in old
England who provided cadavers for the medical schools.�
CCHR continuously investigates criminality within the mental health field and
assists patients in reporting criminal abuse to the police and other authorities.
It supports prosecutors with research and evidence. CCHR created a website,
www.psychcrime.org, that has recorded more than 1,000 convictions of psychiatrists,
psychologists and psychotherapists between 1998 and 2004; 43% of the convictions
were for fraud, theft and embezzlement; 32% for sex crimes; 7% for patient assault
and violent crime; 6% for drug offenses and another 6% for manslaughter and
murder.
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