State says Park Royal Hospital improperly denied treatment
State regulators say Park Royal Hospital wrongly denied treatment to three patients needing emergency psychiatric care because they held out-of-network health insurance.
Park Royal, located in south Fort Myers, is Lee County’s only inpatient psychiatric health center and one of the community's two designated receiving facilities for people taken in for involuntary mental health evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act.
According to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, or AHCA, the 103-bed hospital recently turned away three patients seeking transfer from acute-care hospitals.
“This failure resulted in a delay in treatment of transferring patients,” the agency concludes.
AHCA did not disclose when these patients were turned away, citing medical privacy laws.
According to AHCA, Park Royal intake staffers told inspectors that “when they receive a call from another facility regarding a Baker Act, they ask for the patient's insurance. Based on the insurance information, and bed availability, they will accept or refer the patient to another facility.”
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Designated Baker Act receiving facilities may not deny treatment because they are uninsured or because of the private insurance they have, said AHCA spokeswoman Shelisha Coleman.
The agency may impose an administrative fine, not to exceed $1,000 per violation, per day, for such violations, Coleman said.
Mike Ham, CEO of Park Royal Hospital, did not respond to several requests this week to talk about the AHCA report. Park Royal is a for-profit hospital operated by the Franklin, Tennessee-based Acadia Healthcare Co.
Fort Myers-based SalusCare operates Lee County other Baker Act facility, which has a 30-bed unit. SalusCare representatives on Thursday did not comment on Park Royal's reported violations.
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Tina Sumo, assistant vice president for acute care services at SalusCare, said the facility is at capacity "more times than not."
"Even if we're full, we have to figure out what we need to do with each patient," she said.
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