Psych floor in hospital vs Free-standing Facility

Thanks Have you ever felt that hospitals preferred hospital-psych experience as opposed to a free-standing psych facility?

I used to work in a free-standing private psych hospital. The psych part doesn't vary much by location or type of facility, but the physical aspect certainly does.

I'm aware of psych units that will admit patients with concurrent medical problems. Our free-standing unit, for the most part, did not.

Because we had no ER or ICU on the premises (not to mention enough staff to deal with medical issues) we had to put limits on the types of co-morbidities we could handle. Severe detoxers had to be cleared by the nearby medical hospital before we could take them. This was also true for patients who had substance-related suicide attempts. Anorexic tube-feeders were okay, as were folks on basic IVs, but antibiotics and tele patients and other medical needs were more than we could manage.

Once patients were medically stable, we were happy to admit them.

As far as the mental health-related issues, though, psych is psych.