Mental health provider shuts doors after state pulls Medicaid payments

Another Chapter in the Decline of Psychiatry, from a report by the Arkansas News Bureau

A Southeast Arkansas child mental health provider closed its doors Wednesday, a day after a judge cleared the way for the state to terminate Medicaid payments to the facility.

Lawyers for Gilead Family Resource Center, a McGehee-based provider cited by the state for billing irregularities and improper medical practices, had argued in court last week that the facility could not survive without Medicaid payments covering treatment for the bulk of its patients.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Jay Moody advised lawyers in a brief letter Tuesday he was dissolving a temporary restraining order he issued June 6 that blocked the state Department of Human Services from cutting off payments to Gilead.

DHS moved quickly to terminate the payments to the company, which operated seven facilities in four southeastern Arkansas cities.

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Moody's earlier order allowed Gilead to receive Medicaid reimbursements while appealing DHS' decision to terminate payments. Lawyers for Gilead filed an administrative appeal Wednesday with DHS.

In a June 2007 audit, just weeks before Gibson and others bought Gilead, the state questioned the appropriateness of some clients' diagnoses and medications and found billing problems that included multiple charges for services to the same client.

Auditors also found the facility used uncertified staff for counseling and therapy services, and said there appeared to be no oversight of services by a child psychiatrist.

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DHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said Gilead was reimbursed about $80,000 a week for providing mental health services to about 430 clients, mostly preschool children. DHS may try to recover the $160,000 or so the center received after Moody's initial order, along with the more than $800,000 the agency contends it is due from alleged billing irregularities, she said.

Gilead operated two facilities in both Hamburg and McGehee, and one each in Dumas, Lake Village and Monticello.

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Prior to state sanctions, Gilead provided treatment for nine children in state custody. After those children were moved and re-evaluated, just two were deemed to need any sort of continued treatment, Munsell said.