ANOTHER OPTION
LifeCare opens behavioral health hospital in Wilkinsburg
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Recognizing both a community need and a business opportunity, LifeCare Hospitals of Pittsburgh has opened a freestanding adult behavioral health hospital at its main campus facility in Wilkinsburg.
The 49-bed LifeCare Behavioral Health Hospital, located on the second floor of LifeCare’s long-term acute care facility on Penn Avenue, has undergone a $1 million renovation in the past year.
Because the majority of the hospital’s patients are court-ordered commitments with a range of diagnoses such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder, the hospital was redesigned with safety as the paramount concern.
Patient rooms, all private, are simple yet homey. Being mindful that some patients may be a danger to themselves, there are no writing pens or other sharp objects, and the rooms are outfitted with immovable furniture and wicket doors so staff can gain entry if patients try to barricade themselves inside.
The rooms also have tamperproof screws, recessed sprinklers and piano-hinged doors. Patients are checked every 15 minutes, more often if they are in distress, and are seen daily by a psychiatrist and a medical doctor. “We’re the safest psychiatric facility in Western Pennsylvania,” said CEO Catherine Kalas.
The hospital only provides an additional 10 beds to the facility’s previous behavioral health unit but every bed helps, said U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, whose “Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015” was signed into law in December.
The law is designed to help families dealing with a mental health crisis and includes provisions to expand access to care and address the shortage of crisis mental health beds.
“We have a critical shortage of beds,” said Mr. Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, a practicing psychologist.
Too often, he said, someone who is suicidal or experiencing a psychotic break may be taken to an emergency room where they wait for hours, or even are told to go home to wait until a bed became available. That delay could lead to further deterioration of their mental state, or even become life threatening, he said in a phone interview Thursday.
“We would not tolerate this in any other area of medicine. You wouldn’t tell a person having a heart attack to go home and we’ll call you when you have a bed.”
Ms. Kalas said the upgrade at LifeCare was prompted by changes in Medicare reimbursement that prompted LifeCare to separate its previous behavior health unit from its longterm acute care program.
But the changes were also made with an eye toward the state’s and Pittsburgh’s changing landscape, and growing need, for access to inpatient psychiatric care.
“We’re still feeling the effects of the closure of state hospitals,” she said during a recent tour through the new hospital. “All of those people are now in personal care homes and they need assistance at times in terms of taking their meds and they need inpatient care at times.”
Additionally, Highmark members will lose in-network access to UPMC’s Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic unless the two come to some further agreement before the 2014 Highmark-UPMC consent decrees expire in July 2019.
LifeCare, part of the forprofit LifeCare Health Partners based in Plano, Texas, is in network for Highmark and Gateway members, as well as Medicare and VA beneficiaries, and it is currently in negotiations with UPMC Health Plan.
With patients staying an average of 10-20 days, the LifeCare staff includes three full-time and two part-time psychiatrists, plus one nurse and one aide for every 10 patients.
Mr. Murphy said he welcomes the additional crisis mental health beds and vowed to continue lobbying for more. He noted the shortage is especially acute in rural counties where there are fewer psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers.
But families in more populated areas can run into roadblocks and delays, too. There may be more providers in Allegheny County and other densely populated areas, he said, but in too many cases “their schedules are filled up and they’re not taking new patients.”