RI hospital eligible for $30-$40M Medicaid funding due to standalone psych facility

The state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital (ESH) in Cranston, RI has created a standalone psychiatric hospital, discharging and then re-admitting 52 patients with often-longstanding mental illness. An existing care staff of 81 also moved with them.
ESH is a long-term acute care hospital treating and caring for medical patients and some psychiatric patients. It received licensure approval in late October of this year after seeking to qualify for Medicaid reimbursement, the rules of which disallow reimbursement for patients under age 65 when more than 50 percent of the patient headcount is psychiatric.
ESH’s psychiatric forensic patients (those with serious mental illnesses: those with severe and persistent mental illness who are incompetent to st...