There used to be mental institutions. Now there are re-habilitation   centers for short terms. Where do we put people who need a place to live while coping with their long term illnesses? The young man who shot and murdered 20 first graders and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School suffered profound mental illness. His parent’s   sought treatment but at least once their health insurance provider denied payment. Because of reoccurring tragedies and an epidemic of suicides among people in their 20’s something needs to be done to open up long term care institutions again.

It has been 2 and a half years after the Sandy Hook tragedy and what has been done about mental health issues in this country? Little. In fact patients are being denied by their long care providers of health care. In fact patient care has been cut short by insurance company doctors who have never even examined the patient. Why? Greed? Who are these people playing God with patient’s lives and all our lives that can be in danger with mental patients roaming the streets of our cities and towns.  Why should parents have to fight for psychiatric care for their kids? Long term care is often denied by insurance company doctors.  The problem is that just a 12 week program can cost as much as $60,000 and the insurance companies do not want to pay for much more than that.

Psychiatrics, pediatricians and therapists who see patients on a daily basis recommendations are being ignored to insurance company doctors who say the patient does not need care.  The process is that after a patient is admitted an insurance company starts calling the doctor every day. If the representative decides that the patient is ready for a lower level of care, the lets say bulimic cutter is let out. Of course they are doing better because they are being monitored in the institution.  In chronic cased the result is often a denial for long term care.  This is why we have naked people threatening other people on the streets or suicides. Quite often hen the mental patient goes mental it all ends with them being killed by a cop or them killing themselves after some horrific act.

The insurance companies like to call what they do managed care when in fact it is really managed   costs. Once you take the knife away or the gun away of course the mental patient is less of a risk for the time being. Bi Polar issues are a problem because you never know when a violent episode will occur. Anthem is one of the largest insurance companies and they often deny people who have had as much as 4 times to rehabilitation centers more treatment. What is worse is that the insurance company doctors are paid by the case. One doctor can receive $45 dollars per patient. One doctor did 550 reviews in one month. While working from home he received $25 thousand dollars per month. Greed!

There are insurance company doctors who have a 92% denial rate for care. It is typical for Anthem doctors. What is a parent of a sick kid to do go broke or just wait for their kid to self- destruct and take down others with them? Doctor Timothy Jack doesn’t even sign his denials. He has a computer stamp pad of his signature for official documents. Anthem in its defense says that often doctors will inflate the patient’s actions to insure acceptance. Would a doctor lie for a patient? I doubt that. Anthem says you can’t keep a patient in a hospital forever. The parents say if the kid was hospitalized their kid wouldn’t have taken the car and drove across the country and then committed suicide as happened in one case.

We need a state agency to review all denials and make sure the mental health industry   provide adequate care for our citizens.