U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, is urging the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate four major youth residential treatment facilities (RTFs) for Medicaid fraud.
Wyden also asked the DOJ to look at whether states are violating the civil rights of children by placing them in facilities rather than providing access to community-based care.
In his request to the DOJ, Wyden provided evidence of potential civil rights violations and Medicaid fraud uncovered in his own investigation into four organizations — Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare. Wyden said his investigation exposed systemic taxpayer-funded child abuse and neglect in youth RTFs across the country.
“Vulnerable children are being used as pawns to maximize the profits of these facilities – and American taxpayers are footing the bill. More often than not, these kids aren’t even getting the basic care they need, and instead are in many cases experiencing serious neglect and abuse,” Wyden said. “With the health and safety of kids involved – and pages of evidence – it’s time for the DOJ to get involved.”
In a letter to the DOJ, Wyden alleges that while Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare receive billions of Medicaid dollars, the facilities are often providing substandard and inadequate health care. Further, his investigation found that facilities may bill Medicaid for services that were never effectively rendered at the expense of children with immediate, serious health needs.
In many cases, facilities are also failing to adhere to basic regulations regarding the safety of children, said Wyden.
Additionally, Wyden expressed concerns that states are violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) due to their overreliance on RTFs. The ADA requires states to provide people with disabilities access to care in the most integrated settings possible. Instead, the findings of Wyden’s investigation suggest that state agencies may be impermissibly removing children from their communities to receive treatment.
He found that in 2022 alone, 34,000 youth were placed in RTFs through state foster care systems. Many of these RTF placements resulted from a child welfare agency’s inability to identify capacity in the community, rather than the actual behavioral health needs of the child.