Legislative Analyst: California's IST waitlist leveled off near 800 after years of growth, but referrals keep rising
The Legislative Analyst's Office reviewed the Department of State Hospitals budget just before the pandemic. It found the average monthly IST waitlist climbed from roughly 350 patients in 2013 to over 800 by 2018, an annual increase near 20 percent, and then stopped growing in 2019, which it attributed to added restoration capacity such as more jail-based competency treatment beds.
The report cautioned that the plateau was fragile because referrals to DSH kept increasing. As of January 14, 2020, about 1,200 patients were awaiting placement, about 800 of them IST patients, in a department whose proposed budget had grown to about $2.3 billion.
Because it predates COVID-19 admission suspensions, the document works as a baseline for the waitlist surge that followed in 2020 and 2021.
Source: The 2020-21 Budget: Analysis of the Department of State Hospitals Budget — California Legislative Analyst's Office
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