Vermont State Hospital loses Federal Psych funding

The Vermont State Hospital will not challenge a federal decision to withhold funding for patients at the state psychiatric facility effective Sept. 30.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided last week to stop paying roughly $700,000 a year to the 54-bed hospital in Waterbury because its inspectors found a list of deficiencies in treatment, staffing, leadership and patient safety during repeated inspections since March.
Federal officials concluded this month that the hospital wouldn’t be able to remedy everything by a Sept. 30 deadline.

Helen Mulligan, spokeswoman for the agency, said that when the second suicide in a month took place after the hospital said it was making corrections, “we concluded that either the plan of correction wasn’t adequate or it wasn’t being followed.” Besio said the problem wasn’t with the proposed changes, but the ambitious schedule.

A female patient committed suicide Sept. 16. A male patient committed suicide Aug. 8. Shaw wrote that inspections following each of these events noted deficiencies “of such a serious nature as to constitute an immediate threat to the health and safety of patients receiving inpatient services.”