Acadia partners with hospitals to offer psych option

Acadia Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit owner of psychiatric hospitals, is embarking on a strategy of entering joint ventures with not-for-profit hospital systems to open psychiatric beds.

Acadia is partnering with Ochsner Health System to open an 82-bed psychiatric hospital in LaPlace, La., out- side of New Orleans.

The location currently houses Ochsner’s River Parishes’ Emergency Room, the site of a former LifePoint Health hospital that Ochsner acquired. Ochsner intends to move the freestanding emergency room to a new nearby site, and Acadia will refurbish the building for the psychiatric hospital, the companies said in a news release.

New Orleans is “radically underbedded” for psychiatric patients, creating long wait lists for care in the area, Acadia CEO Joey Jacobs said. The hospital is expected to open in 2018.

It’s a situation that has been spotlighted in many markets as public awareness of mental health issues increases, said Rod Laughlin, a founder and former CEO of Acadia who is now building his own chain of psychiatric hospitals, Perimeter Healthcare.