Sonoma County has taken a crucial step toward closing a years-long gap in psychiatric emergency services that has turned local hospitals and the county jail into de facto nursing homes.
The Sonoma County Healing Center, a 16-bed psychiatric facility for low-income residents suffering from acute mental health crises, opened Thursday, a move announced by local mental health advocates.
Those same advocates, however, cautioned that there is more work to be done in the form of additional beds, as well as stronger outpatient behavioral health services to prevent people from needing a locked psychiatric bed.
“It’s absolutely a step in the right direction,” said Mary-Frances Walsh, executive director of Sonoma County NAMI. “We talk to so many families who have a loved one who needs hospitalization, and because there are no psychiatric beds available locally, they are often sent out of the county.”
James Gore, chairman of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, in a statement described the facility as an “important resource to ensure that people with mental health conditions are not forgotten and get the critical care they need.”
The new facility is at 7440 Los Guilicos Road in Sonoma Valley, the site of the former Valley of the Moon Children’s Center, which has been vacant since 2009. It will be operated by Crestwood Behavioral Health, Inc.
Under an agreement with the county, Crestwood has reserved 14 beds for Sonoma County residents. The other two beds are reserved for Marin County, local officials said.
Sonoma County, which paid the construction cost of nearly $4,625,600 to remodel and build the facility, is responsible for paying Crestwood $1,000 a day for each of the 14 beds, whether or not they are in use, according to a report from supervisors. County.
The 14 psychiatric beds do not come close to replacing the number of secure psychiatric beds that were lost some 15 years ago due to financial concerns. At the time, the county had two 60-bed psychiatric hospitals available for low-income residents in mental health crises.
One of the hospitals, owned by the county and operated by Sutter Health, had 30 beds and was closed in 2007 because it cost the county about $2 million a year to cover the difference between the cost of patient care and the reimbursement Sutter received. Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurers.
The second psychiatric hospital, run by Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in a satellite facility on Fulton Road in west Santa Rosa, closed in 2008. At the time, Memorial’s operator, St. Joseph Health, said the facility had lost almost $22 million during the preceding three years.
Mental health professionals and the county sheriff at the time warned that closing the hospitals would lead to a crisis in local jails and hospitals. But then-county mental health director Art Ewart said such concerns were overblown and the county was trying to find ways to set up an alternative 16-bed non-hospital psychiatric health facility.
That wouldn’t happen until May 2020, when local supervisors finally approved the construction of a psychiatric health center, known in the mental health field as PHF or “PUFF.” Under federal regulations, psychiatric facilities that are not connected to a hospital with more than 16 beds are not eligible for federal Medicaid matching funds for adults ages 18-65.
By creating a PHF in Sonoma County, health officials hope to provide more local options for low-income residents who require temporary psychiatric hospitalizations. But the county also hopes to save money.
About 40% of patients in the county’s Crisis Stabilization Unit, essentially an emergency department for mental health patients, end up needing to “overstay” for periods Medi-Cal won’t reimburse. Officials said that in fiscal year 2018-19, the crisis unit generated $12,273,684 in non-reimbursable services.
At the facility, clients will receive intensive psychiatric treatment for an average of eight days. Tina Rivera, interim director of the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, said the opening of the Healing Center had been long overdue.
The opening of a health center in Sonoma County will close the gap in ongoing psychiatric crisis care, improve customer service and address negative impacts experienced by other local services,” Rivera said in a statement.
Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health and Memorial Hospital contributed $625,000 to the project. Tarek Salaway, senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser Permanente in Marin and Sonoma counties, said Kaiser’s $250,000 grant was an effort to speed the opening of facilities for low-income residents and to help reduce health disparities “We know that the mental health of the community has been affected by the North Bay fires and now by the pandemic,” Salaway said.
More than that you can contact staff writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.
