What Happens When You Get Baker Acted in Florida?
Question by Amber: What happens when you get baker acted in Florida?
What happens when you get baker acted in Florida. I know that you have to stay in for 72 hours but what else happens?
Best answer:
Answer by Karin C
In order for the involuntary commitment to be extended, the mental health professionals who do the assessment have to convince a judge that the extension of the commitment is warranted in order to protect the individual or the public, and that the individual is indeed suffering from a legitimate mental condition.
My dad was committed for 72 hours a number of times, and three times had the commitment extended to two weeks or longer. This was in California, but for practical purposes it’s about the same.
FWIW, in most cases what the mental health professionals will do during the 72 hour hold is try to convince the individual to voluntarily extend their stay as necessary. The psychiatric professionals really prefer this to having to go to court, because going to court involves a lot of paperwork, a great deal of time and effort, and judges are very reluctant to extend the commitment without a lot of proof that the individual really truly is a danger to themselves or the public. The psychiatric professionals will enlist family members of the individual to bring pressure to bear, and if the police were in any way involved in the initial hospitalization, they’ll use that as leverage too (e.g., if the individual will voluntarily stay, the police might drop any charges that are pending).
Another practical consideration: finances. The psychiatric professionals at a hospital are much more likely to go to court for a longer hospitalization if the patient has insurance that will cover the stay. If the patient lacks the ability to pay, then the state usually has to cough up the funds for the stay, or else the hospital may have to eat the cost. Hospitals will exhaust every other possibility before they will keep a patient who is unable to pay for his inpatient care. If they do have to accept a patient who is unable to pay, they will limit the stay as best they can. This is where the family of the patient has to be VERY hard-nosed about telling the psychiatric professionals that if the patient is discharged and then does harm to himself or anyone else, there will definitely be lawsuits. (Personal experience: you really have to be very determined about this. If you can cite past experiences where early discharge of the patient on prior occasion caused documented problems, that can help to keep the patient in the hospital.)
Another reality: if the patient isn’t insured, the number of public-funded psychiatric admissions is limited to what’s available. If everything is full, the options are much more limited. I once waited in a hospital’s ER psychiatric section with my dad for 19 hours, waiting for a bed to open up, praying the whole time that someone in worse condition wasn’t brought in. There just aren’t that many spaces available.
During the 72 hours the patient is in the hospital, the psychiatric professionals will assess his condition and come up with a treatment plan, and will attempt to initiate the treatment plan. Bear in mind that the patient has the right to refuse treatment and can refuse medication. The psychiatric care professionals will try to work with family, if the patient has any, to come up with a plan for treatment upon discharge, whether that’s after the 72 hours or a longer stay, but so much depends on what financial resources the patient has. Sad.
Give your answer to this question below!
Addiction treatment center Port Saint Lucie Florida (772) 337-8500 – Call 772-337-8500 New Life Addiction Treatment Center: Addiction treatment center Port Saint Lucie Florida. Substance drug abuse, detox, chemical dependency,…