Old Vineyard Behavioral Health Services said yesterday that it has chosen a lower-cost option for opening a 50-bed psychiatric-emergency department.
Kevin Patton, the chief executive of Old Vineyard, said that the provider has delivered its proposed changes to the N.C. Division of Health Service Regulation. Patton offered an update on Old Vineyard's plans at the monthly meeting of the Forsyth County Mental Health Collaborative.
Instead of building a facility at a projected cost of $13.8 million, Old Vineyard is asking regulators to approve the renovation of existing space at about half of the cost, Patton said. The goal remains having the beds available in 2011, he said.
Patton said that the decision to pursue the lower-cost plan was his rather than directed by Universal Health Services Inc., its for-profit owner.
The 50 beds are being moved from Broughton Hospital, a state psychiatric hospital in Morganton.
If the state approves the certificate-of-need change, it is likely that Old Vineyard will drop its services for adolescent psychiatric residential treatment to make room. Those services include a program for adolescent sex offenders with aggressive behavioral tendencies.
If that happens, the nearest providers for those services would be in Greensboro and Statesville.
Old Vineyard has 111 beds, 57 dedicated to psychiatric residential beds for people ages 12 to 17, and 54 for acute mental-health care.
Patton said that there are 41 psychiatric-residential patients currently at Old Vineyard, with only a few from Davie, Forsyth, Rockingham and Stokes counties.
"It's a step-by-step process," Patton said. "Once we get the state's decision, we can make a final decision, but the option on the table we are leaning toward is closing the residential program."
State officials say that there is room to absorb Old Vineyard's capacity since up to 40 percent of the 394 community psychiatric residential-treatment beds statewide are not being used at any given time.
There has been concern among some local mental-health advocates about how Old Vineyard would handle patients at the emergency department between the ages of 21 and 64 who are dependent on Medicaid. Specialized psychiatric operations, such as Old Vineyard, are not allowed to bill Medicaid for services, according to federal law.
That leaves patients in that age category to be taken for treatment at the emergency departments at such medical centers as Forsyth or Wake Forest University Baptist, or to state hospitals.
"Local hospitals know what Old Vineyard can and can't take in terms of patients," Patton said.
"We deflected 1,280 patients in the last year, and 3 percent of those were Medicaid patients. That's why we need to get more beds."
rcraver@wsjournal.com
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