Minnesota health department memo shows jail-priority admissions under the 48-hour law jumped fivefold in four years
Direct Care and Treatment told the Senate committee how the 2013 law requiring priority admission from county jails was playing out. The law covers four groups: people ordered for psychiatric examination, people undergoing competency treatment, people found not guilty by reason of mental illness, and people civilly committed after criminal charges were dismissed. When a medically appropriate bed is open, admission is supposed to happen within 48 hours; otherwise the person goes on a waiting list, ahead of patients from community hospitals and emergency departments.
Priority admissions climbed from 44 in 2013 to 227 in 2017, and over half of the beds at Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center, which handles most of them, were occupied by jail patients.
The memo listed factors reducing usable capacity, including a $1.3 million investment to reduce ligature risks, higher patient acuity needing intensive care areas, and temporary staffing shortages after psychiatrist departures.
Source: Update on Patient Prioritization at AMRTC — Minnesota Department of Human Services (memo to Senate Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee), by Dan Kitzberger, Legislative Director, Direct Care and Treatment, Minnesota Department of Human Services
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