A new Dane County mental health crisis center could save taxpayers and hospitals millions of dollars, county officials said in proposing the idea Friday.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said Friday she would include in her 2010 budget a new Dane County Crisis Care Stabilization Center with 12 beds for people at risk of psychiatric hospitalization.
When people have a psychiatric episode, they're usually brought to a hospital emergency room, many times by a police officer who spends hours there until the person is assessed. From there the person ends up being committed to Mendota Mental Health Center, which cost the county $1.8 million in 2007 and $3.1 million in 2008.
Dane County doesn't have a crisis center on the scale of what is being proposed, said Dr. James Worledge, medical director of psychiatry at St. Mary's Hospital. Worledge sat on a Dane County Health Council task force that recommended the county create a center similar to the eight-bed Jackson House in Janesville, which has 24/7 staffing, security features and stays of between one and 100 days.
People experiencing a psychiatric episode with no physical medical problems could be taken directly to the crisis center, rather than the hospital.
"Our emergency departments are not set up to deal with acute psychiatric crisis," Worledge said. "This place would designed to manage their crisis. It would allow triage to be faster for people with medical issues and it keeps the cost down and it's less time intensive for police."
Two area hospitals estimated they discharged 2,567 patients diagnosed with mental illness. At a rough cost of $1,700 per visit, that came out to $4.36 million, or, with about 30 percent of people uninsured, about $1.3 million in uncollected revenue for the hospitals, which drives up health care costs for others.
Falk estimates the new center would cost $595,000 a year to operate, including $95,000 in county taxes and $500,000 in federal medical assistance funds. Falk is pledging another $200,000 in federal grant dollars to build the center in collaboration with a service provider such as the Mental Health Center of Dane County, Hope Haven or Tellurian, which runs Jackson House.
"It's kind of comparable to the detox model in alcohol where you stabilize people for a day or several weeks," Falk said. "But the whole idea is to move them back into the community or a different care setting."
The announcement comes less than a week before Falk must submit to the County Board a budget that may include layoffs and cuts to social service agencies, including for the first time in many years cuts at the Dane County Mental Health Center.
Lynn Brady, director of clinical programs at the Mental Health Center, said the new center would reduce the cost to help those in crisis, but that the reason they're experiencing a crisis in the first place is because of growing waiting lists for outpatient services.
As of June there were 352 adults on the waiting list for outpatient programs, up from 135 in June 2008. Brady said the center is considering no longer doing initial assessments because it's "unethical and irresponsible" to do so with such long waiting lists.
"I'm pleased to think that we would have a crisis center," Brady said. "I'll be more pleased when I'm comfortable where the money is coming from."
Falk said the goal of building the center is to use money being spent at Mendota Mental Health Institute on community treatment.
