Editor’s note: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault and child abuse. If you need help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673; the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453; or look to Mirror Indy’s resource guide.
Patients held against their will. No therapy. Widespread sex abuse. Employees struggling to contain the chaos.
Those are just some of the allegations that Mirror Indy has been investigating at Options Behavioral Health Hospital.
It’s all tied to a company culture that prioritizes profits over patient care, according to several former employees. One former nurse said the staff had a mantra: “Get heads in beds.”
We have published three investigative articles over the last four months:
Indy mental health facility was ‘kennel for vulnerable people,’ patient says
The Indiana woman was held against her will. Others have described similar disturbing allegations.
‘Treated like an animal’: More troubling stories at Indy mental health facility
Patients of Options Behavioral Health Hospital are sharing experiences of being held against their will.
Widespread sex abuse reported at Indy mental health facility
After nine reported rapes, Options Behavioral Health is facing scrutiny from police and prosecutors.
Tennessee-based Acadia Healthcare, which operates the Options facility, has denied allegations of wrongdoing. A spokesperson noted the Lawrence facility remains accredited after 11 inspections from state and federal authorities in the past two years.
“The handful of allegations cited do not accurately represent the standards of care and practices at Options Behavioral Health,” spokesperson Tim Blair wrote in an email.
Acadia, however, also is facing scrutiny from authorities and investigative journalists in other parts of the country.
What is Acadia Healthcare and Options?
Acadia Healthcare is the largest behavioral health company in the nation. It operates more than 250 facilities, including 10 in Indiana.
People experiencing mental health crises are often transferred from local hospitals to Acadia facilities for further treatment. The company promises to provide “compassionate care that improves lives” at inpatient psychiatric hospitals.
Options Behavioral Health Hospital is an Acadia facility in Lawrence.
What are the widespread allegations of sex abuse?
Nine rapes have been reported at Options since 2020, police records show. Additionally, a former therapist was accused of child sex abuse. The alleged victim was her 17-year-old patient.
Also, three staff members at Resource Treatment Center — another Acadia facility in Indianapolis — have been accused of child sex abuse. That includes the former CEO of the facility.
Acadia declined to comment on the 13 cases, citing patient privacy.
What about the police response?
Former employees described how their colleagues failed to monitor patients. That led to dangerous incidents, they said — and the facility relied on local police to quell them.
Since 2020, records show that police officers have been called to Options more than 560 times — responding on average to an incident every three days.
Lawrence police said they were shocked by the volume. Officers held four meetings with facility leadership over safety concerns, police said.
“We’ve told them they need security in there,” said Travis Cline, deputy chief of investigations. “(Staff) need to pay more attention.”
What are former employees saying?
Paige McIntyre, a former behavioral health associate, described night shifts where she watched up to 20 patients on her own.
Her colleagues, she said, smoked weed and slept on the job: “None of us were qualified.”
Ashley Reed-Kimble, another former employee, described morning meetings where the clinical director reviewed a spreadsheet of patient names to find out how many more days the facility could get covered by insurance.
“I never saw anybody talk about clinical issues,” Reed-Kimble said. “They decided yes or no if a patient stays based on insurance.”
A second therapist, who is not being named by Mirror Indy because she fears retaliation from Acadia, said facility leadership pressured staff to extend patient stays.
“Even if we thought clients were ready to leave, they wanted us to hold them longer to keep the beds full,” the therapist said.
Options had a rule about only discharging two patients per day on a unit, according to emails from Julie Plantz, the clinical director. After being sent a list of allegations by Mirror Indy, Plantz said she would not be a “scapegoat” for Acadia’s practices and resigned this month.
“There were pushes to keep the number of discharges down,” Plantz told Mirror Indy. “That would come from the CEO, but it was also a directive from corporate.”
Acadia did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations from employees.
What are former patients saying?
Paige Dufour said she was held against her will for nearly six days in March while Options billed her insurance $15,000.
“It was a kennel for vulnerable people,” Dufour said.
Dustin Fogt described staff restraining and hitting him when he wouldn’t hand over his phone passcode during admission that same month. Police officers noted the marks on his wrists in their report.
Fogt said staff told him not to press charges or he’d be detained at the facility longer: “I went along with it, because I didn’t want to be there.”
Hannah Hurst shared different problems from her 2021 stay. The young mother said she was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder so the facility could put her on a new medication.
“These were symptoms I’d never had in my life,” Hurst said. “I always thought it was for an extra bill.”
When previously informed by Mirror Indy about the patients’ experiences, an Acadia spokesperson said the stories were “distressing” but Acadia was unable to “substantiate allegations provided by Mirror Indy.”
How have authorities responded?
After learning several of Mirror Indy’s findings this month, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said his office would “further investigate Options and the parent company and ensure that patients are not being taken advantage of.”
“It is clear that a comprehensive investigation of the entire organization is warranted,” Mears told Mirror Indy in a statement.
It is unclear if state or federal authorities are investigating Acadia facilities in Indiana; neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Indiana nor the state’s Attorney General’s Office would say.
In other jurisdictions, though, Acadia is facing increased scrutiny from investigators and journalists.
Who else is investigating Acadia?
A New York Times investigation revealed a disturbing practice at Acadia facilities across the country, where the company detained patients longer than medically necessary to exhaust their insurance.
A second New York Times investigation said Acadia falsified records at its methadone clinics to bill insurance companies, as well as failed to provide necessary counseling.
In September, Acadia agreed to pay nearly $20 million to settle with the Department of Justice over claims it held patients against their will to bill their insurance and defrauded Medicaid and Medicare programs between 2014 and 2017. The company did not provide mental health treatment or therapy, investigators alleged, while understaffing at facilities led to patient assaults and suicides.
Acadia has denied wrongdoing and publicly claimed media reports about its practices are false. But the company is facing new inquiries from the FBI, prosecutors in New York and a federal grand jury in Missouri.
Indianapolis law firm Cohen & Malad is representing at least 15 former patients pursuing legal action against Options and Acadia.
“The simple fact is these patients have been systematically mistreated for extraordinary profits,” attorney Chad Bradford said.
How we reported this series
People experiencing a mental health crisis need help. Many go to local emergency rooms, where they’re referred to facilities such as Options Behavioral Health Hospital for further care. But a place meant for healing can quickly become a nightmare.
Mary Claire started reporting this story in September when a former patient alleged she was held against her will at the Lawrence facility. Her story opened the floodgates: Six other former patients told Mirror Indy about being detained for insurance money, assaulted by staff, coerced into taking naked photos or threatened with court orders when they tried to leave.
Our reporting led us to publish two articles in September and October. After seeing former patients come forward, several former employees decided to speak out, too. One nurse shared daily notes about the facility’s problems. On pages, she documented how Options failed to protect a woman from another patient who was a registered sex offender — even though facility leadership knew about his past behavior.
That pushed Mary Claire to find out what else had been reported at Options. She examined more than 100 pages of police reports and court documents that detailed widespread allegations of sex abuse at the facility. She also spoke to five other former employees about other problems they witnessed, including understaffing and allegations that the company detained patients when it wasn’t medically necessary.
The stories of former employees and patients have already sparked change. After being sent a list of allegations by Mirror Indy, the facility’s clinical director resigned this month. She said she did not want to be a “scapegoat.”
Additionally, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears pledged to further investigate Options and its parent company, Acadia Healthcare.
Mary Claire contacted an Acadia spokesperson about every allegation. Most of the time, the company either declined to comment or answer specific questions. The spokesperson noted the Lawrence facility remains accredited after 11 inspections from state and federal authorities in the past two years.
This article is part of a series. Mary Claire will continue reporting on Options and other mental health facilities in Indianapolis. If you have tips, comments or complaints, you can reach her at the contact information below.
Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at 317-721-7648 or email maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.
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