PA Resigns to Protest Dropped Patients
Michigan PA Todd Chisholm resigned from his position at Hiawatha Behavioral Health on Monday morning as an apparent protest to the way that patients are being dropped, which is due to the source of funding rather than lack of need.
He addressed the Chippewa County Board of Commissioners:
“First and foremost,” said Chisolm of his reason for resigning, “is an administrative decision to try and discharge almost all non-Medicaid patients from the mental health system; specifically, indigent patients, privately insured patients and Medicare insured patients.”
Chisholm says that the approximately 120 dropped patients across three counties, which he indicated are the result of an attempt to survive in a poor economy, will fail in their new settings. He also predicted a bad outcome in the form of suicides, homicides or death by self-neglect.
“I was basically told that the discharges needed to happen and that all cases had been ‘cleared,’ as feasible, by their chart reviews,” said Chisolm, detailing the results of a meeting last week with the administration which prompted his resignation. “I was also told that Pathways Mental Health (based in Marquette) has virtually already succeeded in discharging all, or at least almost all, Medicare clients. If this is true, my thought is: Shame on them.”
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