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Colorado’s new Department of Behavioral Health closed part of the only mental hospital in the Western Slopes on Wednesday after complaints about the quality and safety of the care it provided to teenagers and children as young as 7.
Also on Wednesday, the Division of Health Policy and Finance said it would withhold payments to new Medicaid inpatients until investigators completed a review of safety concerns at West Springs Hospital in Grand Junction. Western Slope Medicaid recipients who require departmental hospitalization must seek it out in Denver, Salt Lake City, or further afield for at least a few months.
West Springs is a division of Mind Springs Health. Mindsprings Health, a long-challenged mental health safety net provider in Western Slopes, has a contract with the state to serve residents in 10 counties.
Department of Behavioral Health letter of cancellation, which served late Wednesday morning, ordered West Springs to stop using the old building north of the new hospital and across a short walkway for housing and treating inpatients. It states that young patients escaped Building D in early September, but does not mention that they returned voluntarily within an hour. It also said the building contained unsafe cords and sharp plastic objects that patients could use to harm themselves and others. Whether the patient did so is unknown at the time of this writing.
Mind Springs spokeswoman Stephanie Keester on Wednesday declined to answer questions about the order, saying the document was shared with the Colorado News Collaborative, a nonprofit organization involving more than 160 news outlets in Colorado. COLab) was obtained illegally. About eight of the estimated 30 to 40 psychiatric patients hospitalized in West Springs are children and teens, her boss told COLab on Tuesday night.
Wednesday’s ceasefire order comes 12 days after MindSprings fired its latest chief medical officer, psychiatrist Dr. Frank James. Employment attorneys described it as “disrespectful, arrogant, harassing and aggressive behavior toward fellow workers.” employee. ”
Two days later, state government sources said James filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, claiming that West Springs was jeopardizing the quality and safety of inpatient care for teenagers and children. Did.
State officials will not publicize the complaint or at least one other they alluded to, nor will they release details until three separate agencies have investigated the allegations. James also did not respond to three requests for comment this week.
Chelsea Arata, who worked for about six years as a psychiatric nurse practitioner treating young inpatients in West Springs and young outpatients in Mind Springs, said James had effectively put her in charge of West Springs’ adolescent unit earlier this month. say. She believes at least one of her complaints to the state reflects concerns she recently raised in meetings and emails seeking clarity and support on issues such as:
- Whether to admit a 7-year-old to a psychiatric ward whose treatment program is designed for teenagers, Arata said. West Springs’ age-restriction policy fluctuates frequently, most recently he banned admission of patients under the age of 12.
- It accommodates young children from the age of 10 with sometimes violent or predatory patients.
- Treating children in ways inappropriate for their age or condition.
- Lack of clear protocols to protect patients from other patients’ violent outbursts — including an incident earlier this month in which one teenager punched another in the face.
- Vague protocols on how to physically restrain young patients posing a serious safety threat.
- Inconsistent policy on whether young patients isolated from other patients in adolescent units require constant distancing monitoring by hospital staff – including toilets and showers – retraumatizing them Despite the risks of
Mind Springs fired Arata last Friday. Her wife, nurse practitioner Raelynn Hilgenfeld, was escorted out of Mind Springs’ housing program after hooting earlier this year. deadly prescription problem With that addiction program.
Mind Springs CEO John Sheehan said late Tuesday that West Springs is allowed to treat young people from the age of seven. She has never spoken to Arata and is not familiar with the concerns she raises about her adolescent unit issue.
“I don’t think there is any evidence that she was retaliated in any way,” he added of her dismissal.
Rather, Arata said she was “fired for instructing a[nurse]in the unit to upset the child and restrain the child so that they could be moved to another part of the unit,” and “lyed about it.” Mind Springs Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth Tice said that all Mind Springs employees have been instructed to do so, so Arata would not be able to make a “serious incident report” about the teenager’s violent outburst. He added that he had not submitted the
Arata countered that there was no evidence to suggest that such provocation actually occurred, and that the administrator had twisted the meaning of her comments about patients and asked how they would deal with violence by patients, including a 16-year-old girl. did not give her and her colleagues a clear and up-to-date policy on She recently had her face punched.
Since being fired on Friday, she said: i love these kids I have taken care of them for many years. I don’t know what happened to them, and I never will. Sitting here, I feel like a conspiracy theorist… I understand how they craft a narrative that justifies firing me in order to expose the issue.
Mind Springs Health has contracted with states in Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Pitkin, Rio Branco, Root and Summit counties. In addition to West Springs Hospital at Grand Junction, there are 13 outpatient offices throughout the 10 county area.
The organization’s outpatient care has been the subject of numerous complaints from residents of these counties about everything from misdiagnosis, wrong prescriptions, and having to wait 11 months to see a psychiatrist. Additionally, some county officials have been unable to get answers from Mind Springs or the state as to why some of the services Mind Springs claims to provide are not actually open to the public. , is dissatisfied.
Sheehan began running Mind Springs in August after longtime predecessor Sharon Raggio resigned last winter following a COLab investigation.The survey revealed Mind Springs’ Longstanding Problem: Lack of Transparency in Care Quality and Safety, Access to Care, and How Tens of Millions of State and Federal Taxes Are SpentThe report was part of a broader investigation into the flaws (some of which are fatal) in mental health and safety net systems across Colorado, and state regulators’ inactions against them.
COLab has since exposed claims by some former Mind Springs employees that the organization had them. falsify thousands of patient records It’s an effort to make treatment programs appear more effective and secure funding from the state. These fraud allegations are currently under investigation by Rocky Mountain Health Plans. Rocky Mountain Health Plans, among other safety net providers, has contracted with the state to administer Medicaid funds to Mind Springs.
news with partners Colorado Springs Gazette When Denver GazetteCOLab also published Patterns of “life-threatening prescribing errors”The review found that in a sampling of 58 outpatients prescribed high-dose tranquilizer benzodiazepines between February 2020 and February 2021, 52 had concerns about the quality of care given. , 28 (48%) had very poor care. faced “severe life-threatening consequences”. State officials kept these findings secret despite growing public concern about Mind Springs. Sheehan says his organization has addressed the issue.
Responsibility to regulate Mind Springs and 17 other tax-funded facilities in Colorado community mental health center The state is divided into three divisions. Health Policy and Funding Division (HCPF), which funds Medicaid. Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), which administers the Center’s licenses.and the behavioral health management (BHA) was launched in July as a Cabinet-level agency and, generally speaking, replaced the Behavioral Health Service in contracting community mental health centers and setting standards of care for them.
Dr. Morgan Medlock, an emergency psychiatrist and addiction medicine expert who runs the BHA, called for “substantial reform” of Colorado’s mental health and safety net system, including significant improvements in transparency and accountability. I promised. Her agency touts Wednesday’s ceasefire order as an example of its commitment to “lead boldly.”
Sheehan acknowledges his longstanding problems at Mind Springs since he was hired two months ago. He said late Tuesday that the organization is “improving every day” under his leadership.
Colorado News co-writer Susan Greene can be contacted confidentially. [email protected].
