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Patient
Protections
In protecting patients from sexual abuse and fraud the following safeguards
have been achieved:
Dozens of criminal statutes have been enacted addressing the increasing number
of sex crimes committed by psychiatrists and psychologists in the United
States, Australia (Victoria), Germany, Sweden and Israel.
Sweden�s law, passed in 1994, provides up to six years in prison for a therapist
convicted of patient sexual assault.
CCHR�s investigations into psychiatry�s predatory and profit-driven practices
resulted in one U.S. private psychiatric hospital chain coming under investigation
by 14 separate federal and state agencies for fraud and patient abuse.
Bounty hunters had been hired to hold people against their will and milk
their insurance dry. The hospital chain paid out $740 mil- lion in criminal
and civil fines. Numerous mental health care fraud investigations have
been conducted in the United States resulting in laws that now prevent
the use of �bounty hunters� to locate individuals with good insurance.
The scandal caused a domino effect in the United States with numerous other
private for-profit psychiatric hospitals paying millions in refunds, penalties
and settlements. In September 1998, Medicare insurance barred 80 Community
Mental Health Centers in nine states from servicing the elderly and disabled
because of the extensive fraud found.
In 2000, the U.S. Justice Department investigated another private psychiatric
hospital chain, Charter Behavioral Systems, Inc. for fraud and abuse.
The company agreed to pay the government $7 million to settle allegations
of overcharging government insurance and other federal programs.
In 2004, the U.S. Defense Criminal Investigative Service issued a report
revealing it had �found an increase in fraud in the delivery of mental
health services, including those provided by hospitals, clinics and private
practitioners.�
The fraud is not limited to the United States.
In Japan, in 1998, the discovery that private psychiatric hospitals were committing
widespread fraud and inflating the numbers of doctors and nurses in facilities
to obtain more money from the government, led to the conviction and jailing
of several psychiatrists.
On December 1, 1998, police raided three private psychiatric hospitals in Ticino,
Switzerland, arresting a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Renzo Realini, for
fraud and falsifying documents. Records showed Realini had been billing
patients for �30-hours� per day treatment.
Crimes of extortion, assault, rape and murder are committed daily by psychiatrists
in the name of �treatment.� They absorb billions in government appropriations
for which they deliver no effective results. In order to clean up the
field of mental health, psychiatrists, psychologists, their hospitals
and associations must be held accountable for their misuse of funds and
harmful practices.
GOVERNMENT RAIDS ON PSYCHIATRY
On August 26, 1993, five government bodies, including the FBI, raided the corporate
offices and hospital facilities of a major U.S. private hospital chain, National
Medical Enterprises (NME). In 1994, due to the massive psychiatric abuses and
fraud discovered, NME paid a record fine of $740 million (600 million).
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