Children Stuck for Days in ERs During Mental Health Crises

According to a recent study, children on Medicaid who visit the emergency department during a mental health crisis are often left stuck there for days, unable to receive the proper inpatient care they need. The study, published in JAMA Health Forum, examined records for over 250,000 such emergency department visits and found that around 1 in 10 of these cases resulted in extended stays of 3 days or longer.

The most common mental health issues driving these extended ER visits were depressive disorders and suicidal thoughts or attempts. Researchers also discovered that in certain states, including North Carolina, Florida, and Maine, as many as 25% of mental health-related emergency visits led to children boarding in the ER for 3-7 days.

Experts say this problem of "boarding" in the emergency department has been growing nationwide for years, as the children's mental health crisis has intensified without a corresponding increase in available inpatient psychiatric beds and outpatient services. Without adequate treatment options, families are often left with no choice but to take their child to the ER during a mental health emergency, only to find that no immediate care is available.

The consequences of these extended ER stays can be severe, as children are confined to small, sometimes windowless rooms without access to the therapeutic activities and interactions they would receive in a proper inpatient psychiatric unit. Experts warn that this "really challenging, heartbreaking situation" can even worsen a child's symptoms while they wait for an available bed.