Patient Care

* One quick way out of the county’s mental health dilemma would be to stop the Medicare licensing of the clinics as part of the Ventura County Medical Center.

The explicit and rigid regulations with regard to hospital-based physician direction would be terminated, along with all the current issues surrounding billing and reimbursement. The staff could devote its time to patient care instead of to endless audits and paperwork requirements of hospital-based treatment.

Is this a radical idea? Hardly, because every other county in California embraces the concept of providing services through Systems of Care without going through the contortions of operating under a hospital system. The other counties have suffered no loss of funds nor have they been fined or audited.

The county of Ventura needs to get back in place with the rest of California in providing appropriate delivery of multidisciplinary services needed by clients. Perhaps then more money could be devoted to care and housing and less to auditors and highly paid psychiatrists doing paperwork and administrative duties. Let them prescribe medication and assess clients’ medical needs, as they have been trained to do.

BETSY BACHMAN

Ventura