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Senators press CDPH on regulation and enforcement of psychiatric facilities after reporting of deaths and abuse
Summary
The Center for Healthcare Quality outlined licensing, inspection and enforcement work; senators pressed the center on weak regulations, low penalty levels and the need for stronger oversight of for-profit psychiatric facilities after reporting of patient deaths.
The Center for Healthcare Quality (CHCQ) told the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on March 10 that its work includes licensing and inspection of more than 15,000 health care facilities across 30 license categories and that the center has made progress reducing complaint backlogs.
CHCQ officials described improvements in complaint timeliness and application processing, and outlined staffing and technology investments to modernize licensing and complaint-handling systems. The center said it completed 96% of long-term care facility complaints within 60 days in the most recent quarter and has reduced open applications by about half since its peak.
Several senators used the presentation to press CHCQ on for-profit acute psychiatric hospitals. Senator Menjivar raised recent reporting alleging deaths, abuse and inadequate reporting at for-profit psychiatric facilities and asked why penalties and enforcement had not been sufficient to change behavior. CHCQ officials said they had investigated many of the reported events, issued deficiencies and penalties where supported by evidence, and identified additional issues for inquiry. They acknowledged regulatory gaps for acute psychiatric hospitals and said they would reprioritize regulations and enforcement work to address the problems.
Senators criticized the level of fines and the department's historical pace of regulatory reform. A CHCQ official said penalty amounts are set based on the evidence gathered during investigations and the standards in current regulations; the center said it will propose regulations to strengthen enforcement authority and expects additional workload from litigation, inspections and complaint handling.
The subcommittee also heard the center's requests for positions and funding to expand its public policy and legislation branch, modernize the centralized applications branch (online licensing), and convert a set of internal sub funds to special funds to improve transparency and fund monitoring. CHCQ said adding staff to the regulations team would speed rulemaking and help estimate compliance costs more accurately.
