"As the share of U.S. adults receiving mental health care treatment steadily grows, for-profit companies are playing an increasingly important role. More than 40% of inpatient mental health beds were operated by for-profit entities as of 2021, according to unpublished data from Morgan Shields, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies quality in behavioral health care. That's up from about 13% in 2010. (The number of mental health beds held relatively constant during that time.)"
"Experts tie this growth to provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which made mental health care an essential health benefit that all insurance plans are required to cover. Before the law, millions of Americans lacked meaningful mental health care coverage by their insurers - if they had any coverage at all. That changed with the law's passage in 2010. Three years later, the Obama administration went further, issuing rules that require plans to pay more for mental health care,"
Many psychiatric hospitals cited by the Centers for Medicare for violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act in the past 15 years are owned and operated by Acadia Healthcare. The share of U.S. adults receiving mental health care treatment is increasing, and for-profit companies have become more prominent in inpatient behavioral health. More than 40% of inpatient mental health beds were operated by for-profit entities as of 2021, up from about 13% in 2010. Provisions of the Affordable Care Act made mental health care an essential benefit and expanded coverage and reimbursement, which spurred investor interest in for-profit behavioral health services.
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