[Lemming Tamer]

What is the difference between a psychiatric hospital and psychiatric facility?
What kind of qualifications does one have to have to be an administrator or director of one?

(and why did the brilliant post I spent 30 minutes writing disappear when I tried to post it???!!!)

Anyway....

I worked in a psychiatric hospital for 8 years. We were owned by a large system and ran by a large medical hospital in our city. I remember how I used to wish we weren't under them (we'd gripe about how they'd dump pts on us or transfer medicallly unstable pts, etc....)
Oh, how I long for those days now!

We were sold and bought by a small corporation 2 years ago. Every day just when I think that things can't get any worse...they do.

Our new administrator is a "recreational therapist" who somehow climbed the corporate ladder. She walks around all day from unit to unit...department to department...micromanaging and spreading her vast knowlege of mental health.
The new supervisor in the assessment/admissions department has no psych experience (the local ER won't even approve her to do assessments there because she has NO experience).

I used to work at a great hospital. I'm not sure what kind of place I'm working at anymore....

(we do have the most wonderful DON that we've ever had....but I don't know how long she will be able to stand all the chaos and stupidity.)

[romie]

"Recreation Therapists" or Certified Therapuetic Recreation Specialists are degreed and credentialled professionals. In order to earn the CTRS credential, you have to have at minimum a bachelor's degree in Therapuetic recreation-- this is two more years of higher education than an associate's degree nurse. In addition, there is a minimum of a six month unpaid internship. Additionally, some CTRS can actually be reimbursed by medicare and medicaid. Finally, if you look at many of the descriptions of postions in the codes regulating LTC and DD/MR care and psych, you will find that someone with a CTRS is considered very well qualified by CMS. I would agree that a well educated and experienced CTRS would have a "vast knowledge of mental health" compared to an entry level ADN with only a one semester rotation in psych.

[romie]

I forgot to mention that a CTRS has to take a national licensing exam and keep up with CEU's and get re-certified frequently. It's can be really tough!

[CharlieRN]

As far as a psych treatment facility is a business the rules of the market apply. Anyone who has the money can buy one.

As far as it is delivering medical care then there has to be an MD in there somewhere under whoes liscense the facility operates.

If the facility does not attempt to deliver medical care then the rules get foggy and the care dangerous. Some "theraputic treatment centers" for adolescents are nothing short of prisons. Notice they make no claim to be either a school or a hospital. They cater to the well-to-do parents of rebellious teens who are willing to lay out 40,000 a year to have their kid "turned around". There are places that will do it or kill him trying. At the very least they will keep him from embrassing his folks until he is 18. Most of these have to operate outside the US.