What Will It Take To Fix Our Broken Mental Health Care System After Santa Barbara Killings?

There were 6 Brutal killings in Santa Barbara last Friday in Isla Vista as a result of untreated mental illness.  Elliot Rodger, 22, was sick and unstable.   As a result, he killed six people and wounded 13 others.  I feel certain that his parents did everything to help him get help, think rationally, and behave as a “normal” mentally healthy 22-year-old man, should or would. I feel certain they were in an on-going battle with him to “get healthy”…In fact in a recent article online, it stated that he had been seen by a variety of mental health professionals and it was apparent that he was very, very disturbed. As stated in the article, he was prescribed medications, which, of course, he didn’t take.  This is yet another example of our horrific broken mental health care system.  I, too, am a victim.  My mentally unstable husband took his life six years ago because he did not receive proper, ongoing, managed, mental health care.  This was in spite of my efforts to find appropriate help.

What is WRONG with this country?  Why can’t mental health care be treated like all the other diseases people struggle with?  Mental illness at times is not only deadly to the sick person; it can be deadly to those around him or her in an unstable moment.  Until we WAKE UP and treat mentally ill and addicted people properly, in a facility where they cannot leave, are properly medicated and titrated on the various much needed medications and stabilizers they need, with on-going therapy for their anxiety, depression, psychosis, personality disorders, bi polar disorders, addictions, i.e. their combined psychological and bio chemical struggles, along with whatever outside stressors, losses, social misconceptions and perceptions they may be dealing with, these types of heinous acts of crime and of course, suicide, will continue.

One of problems is the cost for treatment.  I recently read an article in the Healthcare section of the Los Angeles Times discussing The Mental Health Parity Law. It stated that insurers are not allowed to make it tougher to get mental health and substance abuse benefits than it is to get other kinds of medical benefits.  And, insurance companies can no longer single out mental health and substance abuse care for a limited number of inpatient stays and outpatient visits.  But they do.  In fact, if you are a victim of the system, i.e. a parent or spouse of someone who struggles with substance abuse or mental illness it is tough to get on-going treatment.  At best, your unstable loved one will be hospitalized for a few days, put on medications that you may not know how to manage, and they won’t want to take, and they will be sent home for you, and the community to deal with, ill prepared.  Do not believe any claims of “rapid care”.  There is no such thing for mental illness or addiction.  They are both chronic and often require, intense, on going well managed, in patient programs.  Medications often come with a variety of challenging side effects.  It is crazy to think a family can manage an unstable person who is now even more unstable as a result of the various cocktail of meds they are attempting to adjust to.

If you can afford it; out of complete frustration and fear, YOU will pay out of pocket to get your unstable loved one help, at times costing up to $50,000 or more a month!  But few can afford that. And it takes several months for mentally ill or addicted people to get real help.  We are now talking hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket over time. We are all victims of a failing mental health system.  Even if you do manage to get your struggling loved one in to a decent facility, health plans will aggressively manage his or her inpatient care by questioning each treatment and requiring pre authorization for every single day the patient is in the hospital or treatment facility.  This does not happen, for example with someone who is hospitalized for cancer or heart disease.

For this and other reasons like this, according to the article, insurers are still operating in manners inconsistent with the law.  For example if you are required to pay a $10 co pay for an internist, but a $40 co pay to see a psychiatrist, that is a violation of the law.  Unfortunately if you feel sure that the mental health treatment you are receiving is not on par with your other medical care, it’s hard to prove.   You have to demonstrate they are not doing the same thing on the medical surgical side.  You have to file an appeal internally with your insurance company and even consider bringing in an independent third party to review things.

Rodger the 22 year old college student who killed six and harmed 13 more, was known to have Asperger’s syndrome, had deteriorated in the last year, and he was under psychiatric care, but not taking his medication.

In an article on Friday, the Los Angeles Times published portions of Rodger’s roughly 140-page manifesto in which he detailed his fear that police would foil his plot when they visited him last month.

“I had the striking and devastating fear that someone had somehow discovered what I was planning to do, and reported me for it,” Rodger wrote. “If that was the case, the police would have searched my room, found all of my guns and weapons, along with my writings about what I plan to do with them. I would have been thrown in jail, denied of the chance to exact revenge on my enemies. I can’t imagine a hell darker than that.”  He said police left when he told them it was a misunderstanding.

This to me is absolutely absurd and unbelievable!  Really??  The police could have consulted with his therapist and could have taken him in, called his parents, and demanded he be put “somewhere” and get help BEFORE this happened?

We have an enormous responsibility as a country, to families and our community, to recognize the immediate need to address the issue of helping those who are struggling to treat mentally ill and addicted family members.  It is not rocket science.  In my opinion, people must receive real financial coverage through their insurance for mental illness and addiction, that is, clear and immediate, because getting help for the afflicted is usually a clear, immediate, if not urgent need. Then people need be guided to the right facility, and even better, a choice of facilities where the patient receives inpatient treatment for a minimum of three to twelve months.  At these treatment facilities the patient would receive the proper medication titration with doctors, psychiatrists and therapists who can observe the patient’s side effects, mood fluctuations, etc. and make the necessary changes. In addition at this facility, the patient needs to receive a specialized plan of intense therapy to address their specific issues, related to depression, social issues, anxiety, grief etc.  This type of care insures that the patient has the best opportunity to stabilize and be in a healthy mental state at some point that is determined by a professional staff.   People can then re enter society on the right combination of necessary medication as well as being equipped to manage their emotions with skills and techniques they learned in therapy.

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