SMHDanger Updates

Visit this section for frequent updates about my efforts to warn the public that Sarasota Memorial Hospital—Venice is dumping patients on notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic without providing them with proper medical care. In my case, Sarasota Memorial Hospital claims it was medically appropriate to send me to North Tamp Behavioral Health Clinic without treating three clean facial fractures in my forehead, eye socket and cheek. The fractures were so severe and dangerous that the bone that holds my upper left row of teeth flexed when I ate. The New York Times and federal investigators are doing a great job exposing the scandal. Local reporters and public officials aren’t. I’m willing to pick up the slack if it saves other patients from experiencing the misery Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic put me through.

January 16, 2026: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic and the new North Port Behavioral Health center near me, continues to watch its shareholder value plummet. When I started this site 1 1/2 years ago, the stock was valued at around $85. Today it’s dragging the bottom at $11.69 cents. According to a StockStory article, Acadia Healthcare’s latest price per share plunge is due to a change in insurance compensation for patients who seek care outside New York state. However, most of the stock value has been obliterated since the summer of 2024 due to patient abuse at company-owned mental health treatment facilities. If Acadia finally succumbs to its horrible record of patient abuse, that will be great news to all of us who were abused in its facilities. The sooner the better.

January 16, 2026: Anyone who has been the victim of medical malpractice at a facility in the Sarasota Memorial Hospital network knows that it’s nearly impossible to sue the hospital for compensation. Why? Sarasota Memorial Hospital system is shielded from accountability by sovereign immunity, which makes the hospital an arm of the government. Under current sovereign immunity law, Sarasota Memorial Hospital and dozens of other public hospital systems can commit medical malpractice and the most patients can receive in compensation is $200,000 per abused patient and $300,000 per incident. The compensation caps are so low that it’s nearly impossible to find a law firm that will take a malpractice case because they can’t afford to. Fortunately, there is possible light at the end of the tunnel. Rep. Fiona McFarland (R-Sarasota) is currently sponsoring HB 145, a bill that would raise the compensation caps to $500,000 per abused patient and the per incident cap to $1 million. In 2030, the caps would rise again to $600,000 per person and $1.2 million per incident. Rep. McFarland told fellow lawmakers that her bill is a “measured responsible update to a centuries-old doctrine that strengthens fairness, consistency, and accountability in our system.” Public hospitals and insurers, are of course, opposed to the reasonable reform of Florida’s sovereign immunity law. In my experience, Sarasota Memorial Hospital system is hiding its serious medical malpractice problem from the public using sovereign immunity as a shield. This leads to abused patients not being compensated for medical malpractice and the hospital system having no incentive to clean up its act. As a victim of Sarasota Memorial Hospital system’s patient abuse and impenetrable shield of sovereign immunity, I encourage everyone to contact their state legislators to ask them to vote yes on HB 145.

December 10, 2025: Congratulations to Sarasota Memorial Hospital–North Venice for being included on Forbes’ list of Florida’s 29 best hospitals! Just kidding. Seeing the hospital that inappropriately railroaded me and other patients I know to Acadia Healthcare’s notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic on a best anything list scrambles my brain. Paramedics brought me to the hospital with a seriously fractured face — clean breaks in my eye socket, forehead and inner cheek. The hospital’s solution, send me to a treatment center for five days where I had to keep a low profile so the people who really needed treatment wouldn’t accidentally or intentionally add to my perilous situation. If you remember, I also met two military retirees who had similar experinces, one was railroaded to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic and another who escaped the ER before they could commit her. Read the SMH Danger homepage for the complete story. Instead of coming clean and compensating me for my pain and suffering, Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate — read hospital advocate — Brian Peal blamed the whole thing on me. Trust me, Brian, the three hours I spent having titanium strips installed to repair the clean breaks in my face weeks after I got out of the treatment center are a pretty sure indication NOT treating me when I was admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice was a huge mistake that endangered my life. I doubt my experience was a one-off. To me, Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice will always be a hellhole to be avoided at all cost. (Patients beware: when a public hospital in Florida abuses you, the maximum you can win in a malpractice case is $250,000. No law firm will take your case. That’s why they’re comfortable abusing patients.)

December 3, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic and the new North Port Behavioral Health Clinic near me, continues to watch its shareholder value plummet. (Bwahaha!) This week, the stock has gone from trading at around $17 to today’s $13 dollar range. Why? Benzinga summed up the problem in a single headline: Acadia Healthcare Stock Tanks after Warning of Litigation Surge. Acadia Healthcare’s stock started its death plunge when it paid the Justice Department $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its hundreds of treatment centers, provided substandard care, and kept patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. Last month, the company agreed to pay shareholders $179 million because it didn’t let investors know its business plan included abusing patients and defrauding insurers. Now, the abused patients themselves are demanding compensation. As someone Sarasota Memorial Hospital railroaded to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic with a dangerously broken face, I can tell you with great certainty we’re only seeing the tip of the patient lawsuit iceberg and rot. If that’s not enough, Acadia Healthcare is still being investigated by federal and state agencies. People ask me why I haven’t sued Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Acadia Healthcare for abusing me. Well, Sarasota Memorial Hospital is a public hospital. In Florida, public hospitals that commit malpractice — aka patient abuse — can only be sued for up to $250,000. Morgan & Morgan and other big law firms that claim to protect us told me they won’t take my case because they won’t make enough $$$. I haven’t sued Acadia Healthcare for holding me for five days with a face its “healthcare” providers knew was cleanly broken in my forehead, eye socket and inner cheek for one simple reason: The facial surgeon at Hawthorne Clinic and Research Center in Sarasota who told me he should have seen me immediately after my face was shattered, not five weeks later, won’t write the letter an attorney said he needs to go after Acadia Healthcare. My best guess is the surgeon — who spent three hours fixing my face with titanium strips — isn’t doing the right thing and writing the letter because he doesn’t want to make waves in our clubby health care market. Sarasota Memorial Hospital is Sarasota County’s largest employer. So where’s this leave me? Seeking other avenues to hold Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic accountable for abusing me so other patients don’t suffer the same fate. I wrote a screenplay based on my experience that I’m currently pitching to producers. And I’m writing a book that will include a chapter about my horrible experience. As a journalist, columnist, produced screenwriter, and soon to be published author — of a book not related to the abuse I experienced — I’ve learned if you can’t jump a fence, go around it. See you at the movies!

December 2, 2025: Nice to see Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic and the new North Port Behavioral Health clinic near me, continues to receive the press it deserves for abusing patients and deceiving shareholders. The situation is so bad, Stockstory actually listed the company in an article titled 3 Cash-Burning Stocks We’re skeptical of. The article offers interesting technical points on why the stock is dragging the bottom — mainly it’s spending more money than it takes in. But it misses the simple fact that the company is paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle federal, state, patient and shareholder lawsuits all involving Acadia Healthcare’s practice of admitting patients who do not belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. I strongly suspect that one of the reasons the article lists for Acadia Healthcare’s flagging value — “underwhelming admissions over the past two years” — is due, in part, to hospitals, healthcare professionals and law enforcement agencies losing faith in the ability of its treatment facilities to actually help, not harm, patients. As someone Sarasota Memorial Hospital railroaded to North Tampa Behavioral despite a dangerously broken face, I hope at least Sarasota Memorial Hospital is now sparing its patients from the abuse I suffered. I know other patients who received the same horrible treatment. I hope they speak up so we can put an end to this dangerous situation.

December 1, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic and the new North Port Behavioral Health Clinic, continues to pay for abusing patients and lying about it. The company, which operates hundreds of facilities nationwide, has agreed to pay $179 million to shareholders who claim the company lied to them about its crooked operations, which caused the stock to plummet when the rot was revealed. Read all about it in a Behavioral Health article here. The shareholder settlement dwarfs the $20 million fine Acadia Health paid to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. Lucky me, I experienced all three forms of abuse firsthand.

As someone who was abused by North Tampa Behavioral Clinic — they kept me for five days with a seriously fractured face — I love watching Acadia Health take hit after hit. The company’s stock has been dragging the bottom since it paid the $20 million fine to the Justice Department and the New York Times ran a series on its dangerous ways over a year ago. With federal and state investigations continuing and patients filing a heap of malpractice lawsuits, its shareholder value is unlikely to recover any time soon. Ahhhh, sweet karma!

As for me, I wasn’t able to post the last couple of months. I was too busy managing a new book deal. The book, which will be published this spring, isn’t about the horror Sarasota Memorial Hospital inflicted on me when it railroaded me to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic with clean breaks in my eye socket, cheek and forehead. Nope, but my next book is going to include the tale and Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic will at last be held accountable for what they did to me and other patients I know. Revenge is best served cold.

Stay tuned!

September 15, 2025: After numerous promises to fix patient abuse problems and then failing to deliver, Acadia Healthcare is shutting down Options Behavioral Health in Indiana. According to a Mirror Indy report, Acadia is shutting down Options due to: “Patients held against their will for insurance money. Violence breaking out on understaffed units. Widespread allegations of sex abuse. No 911 call for a hurt child.” Acadia is facing similar allegations at several of its facilities spread throughout the nation. Last year, the company paid the Department of Justice $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice routinely sent patients, including me, to Acadia Healthcare’s notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. In a frightening twist, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice now has a closer Acadia Healthcare facility to dump patients: North Port Behavioral Health. The North Port facility complained that it was getting enough patients due to a legal bottleneck that was solved with quicker judicial review. Considering how quickly I was railroaded to North Tampa Behavioral Health — and kept for five days even though I had a dangerously fractured face — my hope is patients at the new North Port facility aren’t being abused the way I was. My message to all patients is: Steer clear of all Acadia Healthcare facilities. The company clearly puts profits ahead of patient health.

August 15, 2025: Acadia Healthcare continues to make the news for all the wrong reasons. According to an article published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, young patients at Acadia’s Riverwoods Behavioral Health center outside Atlanta are suing the facility for allegedly abusing them. This is just the latest lawsuit filed against Acadia Healthcare alleging patient abuse at some of its 200-plus facilities. The fact that hospitals, including Sarasota Hospital-Venice, are still referring patients to Acadia Healthcare facilities, like the new treatment center that just opened in North Port, Florida, and North Tampa Behavioral Health, is frightening. Putting patients at-risk in poorly run treatment centers is patient abuse in itself.

August 8, 2025: More good news for patients, bad news for Acadia Healthcare. The parent company of notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health announced that it has spent a whopping $84.5 million on legal fees related to government investigations in the first half of this year. As someone who asked federal and state agencies to look into Acadia Healthcare’s well-documented patient abuse, which I experienced firsthand, I take great satisfaction in this news. Acadia’s CEO Chris Hunter told Behavioral Business magazine that the $84.5 million allocated to government investigations was for legal fees, not settlements. Last year, Acadia Healthcare paid the US Department of Justice $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard or no care, and keeping patient longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. Let’s hope the government fines them into bankruptcy so patients are no longer abused. Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, which sent me to North Tampa Behavioral Health, despite the fact I had severe breaks to my face sustained in a fall, should also be subject to government fines.

August 6, 2025: One of my favorite pastimes since being abused by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and Acadia Healthcare’s notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic is watching Acadia Healthcare’s stock tank. The company declared earnings were down from 91 cents during the second quarter of 2024 to 83 cents during the second quarter of 2025. In the last year, the company’s stock has absolutely cratered. It went from a high of $82.40 cents to around $17.75 today. Acadia Healthcare’s stock started its death spiral last summer when The New York Times published in-depth articles about how the company’s 200-plus facilities admitted patients who didn’t need treatment, failed to provide appropriate care to those who did, and kept patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. I got to experience Acadia’s patient abuse first-hand thanks to the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice — who refused to treat my seriously fractured face and instead dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. There are many malpractice lawsuits being filed against Acadia Healthcare and, hopefully, many more to come. Shareholders are also suing claiming that Acadia Healthcare executives hid their malfeasance from them at a substantial cost to their investment portfolios. It’s great to see Acadia Healthcare being held accountable. Too bad Sarasota Memorial Hospital System — a public organization — isn’t being sanctioned for its involvement in Acadia Healthcare’s scheme to harm and rip-off patients. Maybe someday the rot will be exposed.

July 30, 2025: Acadia Healthcare facilities continue to abuse patients. According to an article published on MirrorIndy.org, a 13-year-old female patient was attacked by another patient and sustained a serious head injury but no one at the Options Behavioral Health Hospital in Lawrence, Indiana, called 9-1-1 . The girl’s mother told Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy that staff told the girl she had “inside bruises” that would go away in a few days. Experts say she should have been immediately sent to an emergency room. This article really strikes a nerve with me because doctors and nurses at Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic knew I had clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and cheek, but they held me for five days without providing any medical treatment or sending me to an outside hospital. The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice actually sent me there in the first place even though I was being cooperative with their staff and had excellent insurance. The Mirror Indy article does an excellent job of exposing Acadia Healthcare’s system-wide patient abuse problem. Many lawsuits have been filed to get injured patients the compensation they deserve. It would be great if a law firm would establish a class action lawsuit so all of us who have been harmed could hold referring hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice, and Acadia Healthcare facilities, like North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, responsible for what they’ve done to us and force them to acknowledge and fix the problem. I actually have a law firm that is willing to take my case if I can provide them with a letter from my surgeon at Hawthorne Clinic and Research Center in Sarasota who told me he should have seen me within 48 hours of when I sustained my injury, not several weeks. He spent two hours in surgery using titanium strips to bring the fractured bones in my face close enough together to heal. Unfortunately, the surgeon won’t provide the letter. I assume it’s because he has privileges at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Sarasota and he doesn’t want to make waves. I’m now searching for an attorney who is willing to subpoena the surgeon so I can expose what Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic did to me so others won’t be abused the way I was. I’ll keep you posted.

July 22, 2025: In the last week, I have received emails from three patients who say they experienced abuse at the hands of doctors and nurses in the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System. The patients were treated with the same rudeness and disregard for their health as I was. In addition, the medical professionals turned aggressively against them when they called out the abuse. It is, indeed, a tragedy that the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System can use its public hospital status — with a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice payouts — to shield itself from lawsuits/accountability. After I fell and shattered my face, the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice decided the best course of action was not to treat clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek (so serious the left upper quadrant of my mouth flexed when I ate) but to send me to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, which kept me and actually extended my stay despite my dangerous injuries so it could rip off my insurance company Florida Blue. To add insult to injury, the hospital told me in a letter that I received appropriate medical care. Would they have dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic if I had a broken neck, arm, back or leg? If not, why would they do that to someone with a broken face that needed two hours of surgery and titanium strips to fix it? To add insult to injury, the surgeon who fixed my face now won’t write a letter to a lawyer who said he would take my case likely because he, too, is tied into the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System. Clearly there was something wrong with the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System when I was abused and there still is today. With three more patients confiding in me, I’m more committed than ever to forcing the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic to take responsibility for the way it abuses patients and to give them compensation for their pain and suffering.

July 15, 2025: Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is still celebrating its Century of Caring, but a visit to the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice with my elderly mother told me they still have a ways to go to truly deliver on their promise of compassionate care. My 88-year-old mother complained of heart palpitations and insisted on going to her primary care physician. The office set her appointment for 2:30. We arrived at 2:15. By 3:00 my mother was starting to fade. I had a choice, take her to the public ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice or the new private HCA Florida Venice Doctors Emergency Center. After my horrible experience in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, where they dumped me at notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health for five days instead of taking care of my dangerously fractured face that required two hours of difficult surgery, my preference was to take her to the private facility. The only problem was I wasn’t sure if they’d take her insurance. So off to the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice we went. The newly-opened and expanded ER is impressive. It’s huge compared to the old ER, which looked like it was built as an after-thought in a closet. I still wonder if I was dumped at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health because they didn’t have enough beds, which is itself malpractice. When I went to check my mother in, it was clear she couldn’t hear the receptionist, so I had to act as a translator between the receptionist and my mother. The facility was huge and hugely empty, so we didn’t have any trouble getting through triage — where the doctors were kind — and into an ER suite. There, my mother was hooked up to all the usual gadgets and left for a while. During this time, a kind young woman wheeled in a space-aged stand-up desk and started asking my mother questions. Again, my mother couldn’t hear her well, but instead of wheeling closer, the young woman shouted questions. Some of my mother’s answers were quite comical. Girl: “What’s your race?” Mother: “100!” She thought she asked for her weight. When this comedy was over my mother paged the front desk ask for some water. Again, the place was pretty empty of patients and there were a lot of hospital workers milling around and laughing in the hallway, which is fine. When no water showed up, my mother called the front desk to ask about the water. When no water showed up, I visited the front desk to ask about the water. Fifteen minutes later, my fading mother said she was hungry and needed something gluten-free to eat. We were repeatedly told that the nurse in charge of her care was administering meds, and no one else could give my mother water or food without her approval. Forty-five minutes or so later a nurse ran in with a tiny bottled water, a chocolate pudding cup and a jello cup and ran out just as quickly. My mother was fully-reclined — a horrible position if you don’t want to drown or get soaked drinking water — and I had no idea how to raise the back of the space-age bed. Rather than wait another 45 minutes for a nurse to raise the bed back, my elderly mother fought hard to sit up so she could take a few sips of water and a few spoons of pudding. Ultimately, the doctors seemed like they knew what they were doing, but the rest of the place obviously needs training in compassion to deliver on the Century of Caring. My mother was discharged without incident and will follow-up with a cardiologist. I’ll keep you posted if there are any further developments. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to avoid Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

July 7, 2025: Acadia Healthcare’s new North Port Behavioral Health Center in Southwest Florida is complaining that the facility will not be viable if Sarasota County doesn’t speed up its ability to Baker Act people. The Baker Act gives the state custody of patients for 72 hours or longer. North Port Behavioral Health would like to conduct Baker Act hearings at its facility. I’m against this move because Acadia Healthcare facilities have proven that whenever given a chance they will put profits ahead of patient health. Here’s my response to an article published in the Venice Gondolier:

As a Venice resident who was abused by a mental health treatment facility owned by the same parent company as North Port Behavioral Health Center, I read reporter Daniel Finton’s article Mental Health Crisis (July 5, 2025) with great interest.

In April 2024, I fell at a downtown Venice restaurant and sustained clean fractures in my left brow, eye socket and inner cheek. Instead of treating my dangerous injuries, doctors in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice intimidated me into Marchman Acting myself (I had a head injury), which meant I was at the mercy of the state for 72 hours.

I was sent to North Tampa Behavioral Health where the providers knew I had a broken face that needed immediate care, but they kept me for the full 72 hours and then pressured me into staying for another 24 hours. Not knowing my rights, I agreed.

After I got out, I found out that the US Department of Justice fined Acadia Healthcare, parent of North Port Behavioral Health Center and North Tampa Behavioral Health, $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard or no care – I received no care – and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies.

Considering my experience at an Acadia Healthcare facility, I encourage our Sarasota County commissioners NOT to allow Baker Act hearing to take place in Northport Behavioral Health. The fox DOESN’T belong in the henhouse. (You can read more about my experience on SMHDanger.com.)

June 26, 2025: (Update: Acadia Healthcare has abandoned plans to place a treatment center in Friendsville. The company determined that the town’s infrastructure could not support the facility.) Acadia Healthcare is facing strong opposition to locating a mental health treatment center in Friendsville, TN. According to an article published in The Daily Times, residents are concerned that the new behavioral health center will overwhelm their small town’s public services. The facility is expected to serve up to 380 youth a year, 80 percent of them young women. In an ironic twist, Village Behavioral Health CEO Chris Shields, who pitched the new facility on behalf of Acadia Healthcare, said, “What we do not treat are any kind of sexual predatory behaviors….” No, but the truth is several Acadia Healthcare facilities located across the country have faced lawsuits alleging that Acadia Healthcare staff sexually assaulted female residents. The company’s performance is so poor that the US Department of Justice fined Acadia Healthcare $20 million last year for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard or no care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. I experienced all three abuses when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice neglected to treat my dangerously fractured face — clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and inner cheek — and, instead, dumped me at Acadia Healthcare’s notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. Friendsville residents are encouraged to educate themselves about Acadia Healthcare on this website. You’ll soon discover you’re right to oppose the new facility. Acadia Healthcare is no friend of your community.

June 20, 2025: Acadia Healthcare stock continues to crater — it couldn’t happen to a better company. Acadia Healthcare, parent of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, has seen it’s shareholder value plummet 68% since this time last year. The company took a serious hit when the New York Times published a few stories in September about how patients were abused at many of its facilities. The situation is so bad, the Department of Justice fined Acadia $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing no or subpar treatment, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers. The company has also faced numerous malpractice lawsuits for failing to supervise or train staff who are accused of battery, sexual abuse and negligence — that in some cases resulted in patient suicides. When doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice abused me by failing to treat clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek and instead shipped me off to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, I witnessed Acadia Healthcare’s horrible treatment of patients firsthand. The doctors and nurses there knew my face was shattered. The only advice they gave me was not to sleep on the left side of my face, and they kept me two days longer than I was supposed to be there. I hope and pray that Acadia Healthcare goes bankrupt so it can’t abuse patients any more. And I hope Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice comes clean about its role in this national tragedy.

June 13, 2025: You asked for it! I delivered! The final act of Do No Harm — the screenplay I wrote based on the abuse I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic has been posted. This section is mostly fiction but anyone who was treated the way I was mistreated in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic could easily imagine this outcome. Doctors and nurses at both facilities not only refused to treat my dangerously broken face but they delayed the critical medical care I desperately needed. I’m still marketing the script to Hollywood producers. I would love to see the movie made to expose the rot in both facilities. The fact is I wasn’t the only one abused in this way. I hope you enjoy the script. It’s certainly not the last chapter in my attempt to hold the Sarasota Memorial Health System and Acadia Healthcare — parent company of North Tampa Behavioral Health — accountable. (Let’s make a video! My YouTube channel already has over 17 million views.)

June 9, 2025: At last, residents of Venice, Florida, where I live, have an option other than Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice for emergency care. HCA Florida Venice Doctors Emergency is opening a facility on the US 41 Bypass in Venice in mid-June. The new, freestanding ER will be operated by board-certified emergency physicians, nurses and paramedics in 11 treatment rooms. This is a positive development considering the way the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice has abused patients, including me, since it opened a few years ago. In my case, paramedics brought me to the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice after I fell in a downtown restaurant. Instead of treating clean breaks in my brow, eye-socket and inner cheek, the doctors and nurses dumped me at the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic where I received no medical care for my dangerous injuries. I know other patients who had similar experiences. In addition to truly professional care, the new ER in town is a private facility. Patients need to be aware that if they’re the victims of malpractice at a Sarasota Memorial Hospital facility, the most they can sue for is $250,000. As I’ve discovered, no law firm can afford to file a malpractice lawsuit with that paltry payoff. Let’s hope competition spurs the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to start treating patients like human beings, instead of profit centers.

June 3, 2025: An attorney who specializes in sexual abuse has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 28 patients of an Acadia Health facility in Springfield, IL. In an opinion piece published in the Springfield Daily Citizen, Kayla Ferrel Onder writes that abuse at Acadia Healthcare’s facilities “isn’t just about individual bad actors or one-off incidents. It’s about a business model that seems to put profits ahead of care – and the cost is being paid by people in their most vulnerable moments.isn’t a rare occurrence, they’re part of a pattern.” She goes on to say: “What’s especially concerning is how long these problems have been allowed to continue. Despite lawsuits, media coverage, and a federal settlement, there are still new cases coming to light. Survivors are still coming forward. The culture, it seems, hasn’t changed.” As someone who was abused by Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, I can tell you with great certainty that the chain’s patient abuse is part of a pattern. When the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice failed to treat my broken face, but instead sent me to North Tampa Behavioral Health, I was admitted even though I didn’t belong there, received no medical attention, and was kept longer than necessary so Acadia Healthcare could bilk my insurance company. This pattern was cited by the Department of Justice when it fined Acadia Healthcare $20 million. The culture that convinced Sarasota Memorial Hospital not to treat the clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek, and convinced North Tampa Behavioral Health to hold me for five days without medical care is a threat to us all. I know this because I’ve met others who were treated with the same abusive disregard. Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Acadia Healthcare need to come clean about what they’ve done to patients like me. I’m going to keep pressing on until they do.

May 28, 2025: “Do No Harm”, the screenplay I wrote about the horrific experience I had at the hands of Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health, continues to receive attention from movie and television producers. The mildly fictionalized thriller would make a compelling movie that entertains while warning the public about the ongoing scandal between hospitals and Acadia Health, parent of North Tampa Behavioral Health, that’s being exposed by reporters and federal and state investigators. It’s one thing to read about the patient abuse they’ve inflicted on me and many other hapless patients, it’s another to see the abuse dramatized. For your entertainment, I posted ACT 2 of Do No Harm on SMHDanger.com. Click on this link: SMH Danger The Screenplay

May 20, 2025: Truly unbelievable news. Really. Becker’s Hospital Review reports that Healthgrades rated Sarasota Memorial Hospital-among the top hospitals in the country for Outstanding Patient Experience and Safety Excellence. As someone who was admitted to the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice with a dangerously shattered face — clean breaks at the brow, eye socket and inner cheek — who didn’t receive any medical care for his injuries but was instead dumped at notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, I can tell you with great certainty Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice doe not provide an outstanding patient experience or safety excellence. And I know other patients who received the same abuse at the hospital’s hands. This is truly a slap in the face to all of us. I hope patients think twice before visiting the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

May 13, 2025: “When you walk onto one of our campuses and you’re cared for by one of our nurses, their caring, compassion and commitment to quality is palpable—I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of their team.” — Sarasota Memorial Hospital Chief Nursing Officer Jean Lucas, PhD, APRN, quoted in SRQ Magazine. Sarasota Memorial Hospital System continues to celebrate its so-called “Century of Caring”. This week SMH recognized its nurses for their service to patients — an event covered by SRQ Magazine. I wish I could share their enthusiasm — I’m sure that most nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital System are superb — but the doctors and the nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice abused me and other patients, and I’ve still seen no evidence of accountability or reform. Instead of treating my seriously fractured face — broken at the forehead, eye socket and inner cheek — the doctors and nurses chose to ship me off to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, where I languished for five days without any medical attention. The service there was so horrible, I had to ask for an Ibuprofen to treat the pain in my face and bruised ribs. I’ve met others in our community who had similar experiences. Chief Nursing Officer Jean Lucas is also quoted in the SRQ Magazine article as saying: “I think what set our nurses and techs apart is that they love what they do. They take a lot of pride in the work that they’re doing for our patients and in the community, they’re compassionate and caring and set high standards for themselves.” All I can say is prove it by fixing the serious problems in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice.

May 9, 2025: One of the most difficult challenges for a patient, like me, who is 62-years-old, is finding a law firm to file a malpractice lawsuit against Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is a public system, which means it has sovereign immunity that caps potential payouts at $250,000. Every lawyer I spoke with said they literally couldn’t afford the case because malpractice cases are very expensive. They said in the end, I wouldn’t receive any compensation and they’d be working at a loss, too. This is certainly an important point for patients to consider when they have a choice between a private or public hospital. Private hospitals don’t have a malpractice payout cap. The shame here is that this means the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice who shipped me off to the North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic without treating my dangerously broken face — clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and cheek — will get away with their gross negligence. As I discussed previously, I’m not the only one who was abused in this way. North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic is a private facility that’s part of Acadia Healthcare, which owns many addiction recovery centers. Acadia Healthcare paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing subpar or no treatment, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. I experienced all three violations, the worse being the doctors and nurses there knew I had a dangerously broken face, but they delayed my care for five days anyway. The only “health care” I received was an intake nurse telling me not to sleep on the left side of my face because it was shattered. I actually found a law firm in Jacksonville that is willing to take my case — with one stipulation. I needed to provide a note from my facial surgeon indicating that the delay in care put my health at risk. My surgeon at the Hawthorne Clinic and Research Center in Sarasota told me he should have seen me within 48 hours of the fall that broke my face. He spent two hours operating on my face to install titanium strips to rejoin the bones in my face so they could heal. Seems pretty cut-and-dried. Unfortunately for me, his office, that said they could provide the letter, hasn’t. So I’m stuck in limbo. What bothers me the most about this is without accountability, there’s the danger that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is continuing to dump patients at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. I’m going to continue to search for a law firm that will take my case. I have one more year to do it. Any assistance will be appreciated.

April 30, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, continues to make the news for all the wrong reasons. The New York Times continues its quest to reveal the rot inside Acadia Healthcare with an article titled Leaders of Mental Health Gian Promised Big Bonuses to Deal with Federal Investigations. The report says the company’s CEO “was awarded a $1.8 million bonus to respond to ‘unprecedented governmental inquiries'”. Federal and state agencies have been investigating allegations of patient abuse — including suicides, due to lack of patient supervision, and sexual assaults — at Acadia facilities. Acadia paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department last year for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. When the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice declined to treat my dangerously fractured face but instead sent me to the North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, I experienced all three deficiencies. Acadia executives who are allowing patient abuse at its facilities shouldn’t be rewarded, they should be fired. The board and executives at Sarasota Memorial Health System who allowed patients, like me, to be abused with no accountability in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice should suffer the same fate. They are not good people.

April 29, 2025: Congratulations to Sarasota Memorial Hospital for opening a new research and education center during its “Century of Caring” celebration. It’s my sincere hope that a portion of the $75 million Sarasota Memorial Health Care System spent on the high tech teaching and research facility will be dedicated to teaching medical professionals how to caring for patients with compassion. Those of us who were abused by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice have still not received a fair accounting of why ER doctors and nurses failed to treat our serious injuries and instead sent us off to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. The Sarasota Memorial Hospital System need to address our concerns immediately, especially since Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic just opened another addiction treatment center in the neighboring city of North Port, Florida. Many Acadia Healthcare facilities across the country are under investigation for patient abuse, similar to the abuse I experienced when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice sent me to North Tampa Behavioral Health with serious facial fractures — in my brow, eye socket and cheek — that the facility did not treat.

April 23, 2025: While most media outlets snooze, The New York Times continues to publish top-notch articles about abuse at Acadia Healthcare’s mental health facilities. The latest article — titled “Suicided and Rape at a Prized Mental Health Center” — discusses patient abuse at Timberline Knolls in Illinois. Among the tragedies included in the article are two former patients who filed lawsuits that accuse the facility of hiring an aide with a criminal record, that included domestic violence, of raping them. Two women who committed suicide. And a child who accessed medication left in a common area. A former worker said Timberline Knolls was extremely under staffed. Several Acadia Healthcare facilities are facing similar lawsuits. The situation at Timberline Knolls was so bad, the facility closed its doors earlier this year. I experienced Acadia Healthcare’s negligence when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice chose not to treat three clean fractures in my face sustained in a fall. Instead, the ER doctors and nurses shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health center, where I languished for five days without appropriate medical care. This situation is especially concerning to me because Acadia Healthcare recently opened North Port Behavioral Health in a neighboring town. Patients, doctors and nurses need to be made aware that placing patients in an Acadia Healthcare facility could put them at risk of physical and/or mental harm. It would be cool if our local media would do as good a job at covering this critical health threat as The New York Times has.

April 16, 2025: Yesterday, we discussed the case of a patient who died under mysterious circumstances at Acadia Healthcare’s MeadowWood Behavioral Health Hospital in Delaware. A lawsuit against Acadia and its facility alleges that staff negligence led to the death of the plaintiff’s son. Today, News From The States published an article that says records say staff at MeadowWood delayed CPR for 9 minutes before a patient died. The tragic death occurred in the same time frame that the patient named in the lawsuit died. The article says its update is based on a report about the lawsuit published by Spotlight Delaware and added that the state health department would not confirm that the patient who died was the same man named in the lawsuit filed by his mother. Spotlight Delaware received documents under the Freedom of Information Act that indicate MeadowWood hospital violated several federal regulations. For example, eight staffers who had expired CPR certificates were allowed to work at the facility. Last year, Acadia Healthcare paid a $20 million fine to the US Department of Justice for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Unfortunately I experienced Acadia’s negligence firsthand when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic instead of treating me for three dangerous fractures to my brow, eye socket and cheek. The doctors and nurses were aware of my injuries but kept me for five days, delaying critical medical care. At some point, federal and state agencies and hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, need to decide if its safe to place patients in Acadia Healthcare facilities. Patient lives literally depend on their decision.

April 15, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic, faces yet another lawsuit from a parent who claims the staff at one of its detox facilities is negligent in her child’s death. According to an article published on News from the States website, the mother of 33-year-old David H. Tymitz is suing MeadowWood Behavioral Health Hospital in New Castle County, Delaware, and Acadia Healthcare. The lawsuit claims that Tymitz was put on a Valium detox protocol and that he was to be monitored during recovery. The staff was required to check in on him every 15 minutes, but early one morning he was found dead in his room. The cause of his death was listed as the “adverse effects of methadone intoxication”. Acadia Healthcare has settled numerous patient abuse lawsuits and is under investigation from federal and state authorities. Last year, the company paid a $20 million fine for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping them for longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Let’s hope hospital’s like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice are no longer dumping patients in Acadia Healthcare facilities.

April 10, 2025: Nearly a year after I fell, fractured my face, and woke up in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I’m still trying to find out why the doctors and nurses shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health center for addiction treatment instead of treating three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. My medical records indicate that I was alert enough to answer questions and acting appropriately. Patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal sent me a letter stating that I was stabilized by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, and that was the hospital’s only responsibility to me before they dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Health. This can’t be true because a facial surgeon told me my fractures were still cleanly broken a month after I fell. So why did they ship me off? Was it basic malpractice, a kickback scheme, or something else? I read an article published in Becker’s Health IT, a medical trade publication, that said Sarasota Memorial Hospitals in Sarasota and Venice were struggling for years with patient flow issues. According to the article, Sarasota Hospital System administrators Susan Grimwood, DNP, APRN, executive director of logistics and patient throughput, and Kathy LeFrancois, BSN, CNML, director of patient flow and nursing resources, said during a Becker’s Hospital Review webinar that the hospital used AI to redesign patient admissions, retention, and discharge rates to increase capacity and income. One of Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s objectives was to discharge patients in a more timely manner. This made me wonder, if perhaps, AI made the decision to discharge me because certainly no thinking, compassionate human being would do it. Maybe the Sarasota Memorial Hospital AI system assumes that a broken face is less important than a broken arm or leg — injuries I’m sure wouldn’t have led to a patient being shipped off for addiction treatment after four hours in the ER. Under this scenario, the decision to dump me at North Tampa Behavioral Health was made to clear an ER suite so another patient could use it, thereby increasing revenue. I hope Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice won an award for achieving maximum efficiency at my expense. Just kidding. I hope the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System comes clean about what they did to me and other patients I’ve met. Until then, this non-AI writer will continue to work to hold them accountable so no other patients are abused the way I was.

April 9, 2025: Despite a $90 million expansion, the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is still failing to deliver appropriate medical care. Last December, the ER announced the grand opening of 61 examination rooms, up from 28 rooms. One of my dear friends who is fighting an aggressive form of cancer visited the ER late at night in March. Instead of receiving care and compassion in one of the ERs new examination rooms, she was put on an IV and told to sit in the waiting room. After three hours languishing there, she got up and left. When she removed the IV needle in her car, she bled all over her clothes. Having received rough treatment in the ER myself — the doctors and nurses sent me to notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health instead of treating three clean and dangerous facial fractures I sustained in a fall — I’m in no way surprised she was treated so horribly. Until Sarasota Memorial Hospital System addresses this problem, I would avoid the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice unless I absolutely had no choice. Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is currently celebrating a “Century of Caring”. Instead of a slogan, they need to deliver real care in the ER.

March 27, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic, is once again in the news for an alleged sexual assault in one of its facilities. According to ABC 17 News in Columbia, Missouri, a patient at CenterPointe Hospital filed a lawsuit this week alleging that they were sexually assaulted by another patient. The lawsuit accuses CenterPoint Hospital and Acadia Healthcare of failing to provide adequate supervision to protect the victim in the case. The patient who allegedly assaulted the patient who is suing had been accused of prior sexual misconduct issues. After the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Health, even though I had severe facial fractures from a fall, I was put in a ward populated by men and women in various states of mental distress. With the low-level of patient supervision, it amazed me that no one was harmed during my five day stay. The CenterPoint Hospital lawsuit is one of many patient abuse lawsuits filed against Acadia Healthcare. It’s a wonder the company is still in business. Healthcare providers, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, need to perform due diligence before they railroad patients like me to Acadia Healthcare facilities, including the new North Port Behavioral Health clinic in Sarasota County, Florida.

March 25, 2025: Why are North Tampa Behavioral Health and Acadia Healthcare still in business? Considering the number of patients of all ages now suing Acadia Healthcare and its far flung facilities for physical and mental abuse, including sexual assault allegations, it’s a wonder that the company is still in business. Acadia Healthcare is so bad the Justice Department fined the company $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. A series of New York Times articles about the company’s abuse of patients and ongoing federal and state investigations have caused the company’s stock to crater to the point that lawyers are lining up plaintiffs for shareholder lawsuits. The best way to put Acadia Healthcare out of our misery would be to stop providing it with federal funding of any sort, including from Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid. As someone who was erroneously sent by ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to North Tampa Behavioral Health and experienced abuse — including no medical attention for three clean facial fractures in my brow, eye socket and cheek — I’m for any steps that closes them down. Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice also needs to acknowledge that dumping me and other patients at North Tampa Behavioral Health was wrong and let us know how it’s going to stop the heinous practice.

March 18, 2025: As someone who was abused by the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome a new, local ER that will give patients a choice in where to seek emergency care. HCA Florida Sarasota Doctor’s Hospital is slated to open an emergency room in May on the US 41 Bypass in Venice. The hospital is now hiring healthcare professionals to run the new facility. The freestanding ER offers patients many advantages. It’s located closer to the downtown core and population center. In addition it’s a private facility, which means if its doctors and nurses commit medical malpractice, the ER can be sued for any amount. This is in stark contrast to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice where malpractice damages are capped at $250,000 because it’s a public hospital. I found this out the hard way when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice chose to ignore my dangerous facial fractures and rushed me off to a treatment center. Even if you have a strong case, attorneys will tell you they won’t sue a public hospital because the return will be tiny for them and the victims. Anyway, welcome HCA Florida Venice Doctors Emergency. I will use your services and recommend you to my family and friends.

March 17, 2025: To thank the dedicated doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice for NOT treating my serious facial fractures but instead sending me away for five terrifying days at the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health, I’m sharing the first 12 pages of my new thriller script “Do No Harm” on SMH Danger. I’ve already had one script made into a movie and a Hollywood producer is pitching a TV series I wrote to the networks, cable outlets and streamers. It’s my hope that my thriller script, based on my real life experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health, ensures no more patients are abused the way I and other patients have been. Click on the link above to read the script. Enjoy!

March 12, 2025: My goodness, when it rains it pours on Acadia Healthcare, parent of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic and soon to be North Port Behavioral Health. Acadia Healthcare’s Detroit Behavioral Institute is facing a lawsuit from three teenage girls who were housed there who allege they were sexually abused by staff. According to an article published this week by the Detroit Free Press, the lawsuit said the shuttered treatment facility “promoted ‘a culture that protected staff rom complaints of sexual abuse’ and ‘celebrated and/or mocked the exploitation of children.'” One of the patients said, “I felt like I was trapped in a jail of horrors.” I know how they feel. Acadia needs to be shut down before it causes additional harm to patients. Acadia, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, and North Tampa Behavioral Health need to come clean on the abuse they promoted today.

March 11, 2025: Patient lawsuits against Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic, continue to mount. According to The Indiana Lawyer, two women are alleging that Acadia-owned Options Behavioral Health System in Indiana was ‘”operated like a prison,’ drugging its patients into submission, threatening them with involuntary detention orders, and holding or releasing patients to maximize reimbursement.” I, personally experienced patient abuse at North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic, so none of the latest charges against Acadia surprise me. Since last September 10 patient lawsuits have been filed against Options Behavioral Health System alone. Acadia Healthcare operates over 200 facilities nationwide.

March 10, 2025: North Port, Florida, beware! Acadia Healthcare, which has been the subject of federal fines, federal and state investigations, shareholder lawsuits, and patient abuse lawsuits, is opening a clinic in your city. North Port Behavioral Health will begin admitting patients later this month. Acadia Healthcare paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and holding patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. I experienced all three shortcoming when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at Acadia’s North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic after I fell and fractured my face. A New York Times series about how Acadia Healthcare abuses patients, caused the company’s stock to plummet in September.

March 3, 2025: Yet another Acadia Healthcare-owned addiction treatment center is facing a patient lawsuit. According to the Denver Post, Jonathan Benitz has filed a lawsuit against Acadia-owned Johnstown Heights Behavioral Health for holding him longer than necessary to bilk health insurers. Over the last six years, Denver7 investigated patient complaints that the facility also had horrible conditions and provided sub-par care. The situation was so bad, a veteran nurse said, “Everything about this place is wrong. As someone dumped at Acadia-owned North Tampa Behavioral Health by ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I can tell you with great certainty the patient allegations are true. Johnston Heights Behavioral is closing at the end of this month. North Tampa Behavioral Health should follow its lead.

February 28, 2025: Happiness is watching Acadia Healthcare’s shareholder value plummet. The company, parent of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health clinic that abused me and other patients, reported weak earnings yesterday. Shareholders responded by dumping the stock, causing its value to plummet nearly $10 to 30.45 today. In addition to weak earnings, Acadia is rife with problems. The company paid a $20 million fine to the Department of Justice for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. It’s facing shareholder and patient lawsuits along with additional federal and state investigations. Another potential problem is a further loss of revenue if Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare face budget cuts. Budget cuts could also plague the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, which dumped me and other patients at North Tampa Behavioral Health and has never admitted its patient abuse problem. Please, keep the karma coming.

February 27, 2025: Finished my new thriller screenplay based on the horrific experience I had at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health. I’m marketing it on Inktip.com, where I sold a script that was made into a movie and had another script — a TV mystery series called Chase & Son — optioned by a major production company that’s currently pitching it to network, cable and streaming outlets. To me, my new script, titled “Do No Harm”, is scariest when it parallels the true story of how the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice decided not to treat my dangerous facial fractures and instead kept me from making a single call while they used law officers to intimidate me into signing away my rights. The tension builds when the hospital sends the main character to the Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, where he receives no care for clean breaks to his brow, eye socket and cheek and no actual addiction treatment while he tries to figure out what’s really going on between the hospital and treatment center. A corrupt psychiatrist and nurse, a crooked security guard, and a very angry patient who suspects he’s a narc have it in for him. I’ll post a sample soon. In the meantime, Hooray for Hollywood! I hope a producer helps me crack this case to warn the public about the dirty dealing between Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic.

February 19, 2025: My Hitchockian thriller script based on the horrific experiences I and others I know had at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, to which the hospital dumped us, is coming along fantastic. Just thought everyone should experience in a movie what it’s like to have a dangerously fractured face and be dumped on the worst possible mental health facility is like. Could it happen to you, yes, if you have a fall alone in downtown Venice, Florida, or anywhere else the unethical Sarasota Memorial Hospital System operates. Looking forward to marketing my screenplay to my contacts in Hollywood. Hope to see you at the movies.

February 18, 2025: I’m not a professional investment adviser, but most of the articles I read about investing in Acadia Healthcare stock totally miss the underlying rot.

As someone who was abused by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and Acadia Healthcare, parent of the North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, I’m keen on seeing both organizations held accountable for the way they’ve mistreated me and other patients.

Holding Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice accountable is difficult. The Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, a public entity, is protected by sovereign immunity, which means the most patients can receive in compensation is $250,000. That payout is so low, few, if any, lawyers will sue the hospital system for medical malpractice, even in blatant cases. This might be why the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System board of directors and administrators are so reluctant to come clean about how their emergency room dumped me and other patients at the North Tampa Behavioral Clinic.

In my case, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic even though I had three clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and cheek from a fall. I’ve met others that they’ve abused in this way, too. And I’ve heard from nurses that it’s a controversial but standard practice.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital System might escape public accountability, Acadia Healthcare isn’t so lucky. The company owns hundreds of behavioral health clinics, including North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. The Justice Department fined the company $20 million for fraudulent practices, including admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers.

That fine combined with a searing New York Times expose’, impending shareholder lawsuit, patient lawsuits, and additional state and local agency investigations caused Acadia Healthcare’s stock to plummet by over half and it’s been dragging the bottom ever since.

Despite all the negative activity surrounding Acadia Healthcare and the hit its stock has taken, it’s stunning to read investor articles about the company. Many, like this article by StockStory published recently on Yahoo! Finance, go into great depth into market fundamentals, but fail to mention the stock’s weakness due to the lawsuits and ongoing investigations.

I admit, due to the abuse I suffered at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic — I was kept there for five days without treatment for my dangerous fractures — I’m biased when it comes to Acadia Healthcare stock, but if I weren’t I’d consider the full story before I’d invest.

February 13, 2025: Under federal law, patient dumping, a hospital that transfers a patient to another facility before they’re stabilized is a crime. So why did Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice patient-dump me on the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic?

One of the most confounding aspects of the abuse Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice committed against me is: Why did the hospital patient dump me on the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic?

The federal government passed the anti-patient dumping law to prevent hospitals from transferring patients who weren’t stabilized to other facilities. The hospitals were often transferring patients who didn’t have insurance or any other means to pay their hospital bills. In many cases, the transfers resulted in patient deaths.

After my fall, I woke up in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice with clean fractures in my brow, eye socket and cheek. I was aware of my injuries and had no problem processing the fact that they needed immediate medical attention. Instead of treating my serious injuries, the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice patient dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, which has been cited for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. The problem is so extreme, the US Justice Department fined North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic’s parent company, Acadia Healthcare, $20 million.

The strange thing about the way I was abused at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is that I was a cooperative patient and I have great insurance. So why did they patient dump me? Did the hospital receive a kickback or was it just pure medical malpractice?

Hospitals found guilty of patient dumping have had to pay out millions of dollars to patients. For example, in 2022 two Kentucky hospitals had to pay $2.4 million each for dumping patients without stabilizing them. Sovereign immunity — basically declaring the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System a government entity — protects the system from huge payouts. They’re capped at $250,000. No attorney will take a case for that sum, and quite frankly, that’s not fair to those of us who have been abused.

If Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is protected by the government and accepts taxpayer funding, it’s obligated to explain to the public why it dumped me and other patients at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. We’re waiting.

February 11, 2025: The abuse I suffered at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic was factually horrible, but it makes great fiction.

As a journalist, columnist, and screenwriter, I’m always looking for a compelling subject to write about. Sometimes, however, the subject I want to cover is so disturbing it takes me a while to work up the strength to sit down and actually hash it out — and even then it can be a very slow project when I’m close to the material.

This is the case with the horrible experiences I had a Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. I’m now working on a screenplay based on what they put me through after I fell last April. I’m embellishing the story only so slightly to turn it into a Hitchcockian thriller.

Imagine: The main character is a 61-year-old man who fell in a restaurant. When he wakes up in the ER, coincidentally like the one at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, he doesn’t remember what happened. The doctors and nurses tell him he has a fractured face — clean breaks in his brow, eye socket and cheek — which he’s pretty sure they’ll treat.

To his surprise and horror, the hospital allows four law officers to intimidate him into committing himself to state supervision for 72 hours. Instead of treating his dangerous injuries, they ship him off to a notorious treatment center, coincidentally like the one at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, which has a reputation for admitting patients who don’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary so they can bilk insurance companies.

At the treatment center, he’s scared to death that he’s going to bleed out or suffer a stroke due to his facial fractures. He also has to deal with actual addicts who could kill him with one punch.

Great thriller, huh?

I’m rolling right along on it. When I’m finished, I’ll send it off to my Hollywood contacts for their consideration.

In the meantime, wouldn’t it be a great twist at the end if Sarasota Memorial Hospital System stopped stonewalling and came clean about what they did to me and other patients? Maybe they’ll surprise us — but I doubt it. That only happens in the movies.

February 7, 2025: When a company like Acadia Healthcare, owner of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health, abuses you, it’s refreshing to watch its stock price plummet and flounder.

Ever since the New York Times ran a series about how Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, routinely abused patients and ripped-off insurers last September, the company’s stock price has plummeted. Last March, the price per share stood at $87. Since December it’s been floundering at about half that price.

Acadia Healthcare’s stock value has also been hurt by a $20 million fine it paid to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. The company also faces lawsuits from abused patients, ongoing federal and state investigations, and a shareholder lawsuit.

As someone who was intimidated by doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice into being admitted into Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Clinic — even though I had three clean fractures sustained in a fall in my brow, eye socket and cheek — I can tell you with great certainty Acadia Healthcare is guilty of putting profits ahead of patient health.

Since Acadia Healthcare is a private company, shareholder can easily hold management accountable for the abuses going on in its facilities. Unfortunately for the patients, like me, who were abused by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, there is no such accountability mechanism. The hospital system is public and covered by sovereign immunity, which means the most patients who file a malpractice lawsuit can receive in compensation is $250,000. Lawyers tell me it’s not worth the effort when neither of us will be fairly compensated.

The only way for patients to be assured that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice stops abusing patients is for the hospital board or directors and administrators to come clean about what they did to me and other patients I know, apologize, and tell us what they’re going to do to stop the abuse.

We’ve already waited long enough for them to do the honorable thing.

February 5, 2025: Congratulation to Sarasota Memorial Hospital System on choosing a site for a new hospital in North Port. For patients’ sake, I hope it’s more like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota than Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

When it comes to the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, no two hospitals or healthcare facilities are alike. I had the unfortunate luck to land in the ER room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice after a fall with a fractured face–eye socket, brow and cheek. Despite being a cooperative patient, as noted in my medical records, I was treated with disdain and shipped off to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, instead of receiving treatment for my dangerous injuries.

After my horrific stay at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, it took four weeks for me to see a facial surgeon who told me my fractures were so serious he should have seen me within 48 hours. He put a rush on my surgery, and, in a two-hour operation, implanted titanium strips to encourage my still cleanly broken bones to heal.

As much as my experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice was a horrific nightmare, my experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota was a joy. The morning of my admission for my facial surgery, I fully expected to be treated like a piece of garbage. Instead, the doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses and support staff treated me with kindness, compassion, and concern for my welfare. Much to my surprise and amazement, they were humans who belonged in medical care. I’m grateful to this day.

Unfortunately, the balloon that lifted my spirits deflated some when I had to deal with the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board System Board of Directors and top administrators. Their response to a letter I sent warning them about the dangerous situation and patient abuse at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice — I’m not the only one who was dumped at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic — was that I was the problem and they were sorry I felt I was treated poorly.

Okay, imagine you’re a 61-year-old man with a severe head injury and facial fractures that are so extreme the upper right quadrant of your mouth flexes when you eat. Wouldn’t you say you were treated poorly, too? The correct and responsible response should have been to acknowledge the problem, apologize to abused patients, and explain how they’re going to fix it.

I’m concerned that the new Sarasota Memorial Hospital facility being built in North Port just by its proximity to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice one town over will have more of the venomous culture delivered at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice than the compassionate culture delivered at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

The Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has shown no interest in fixing the problem. Let’s hope they come around before Sarasota Memorial Hospital-North Port opens.

February 4, 2025: Law firms continue to encourage patients who have been abused by Acadia Healthcare treatment centers, including the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic where I was kept against my will for five days with a dangerously broken face, to contact them to file a lawsuits and receive compensation for the harm that was inflicted. The Lawsuit Information Center is asking patients who were abused to contact them at lawsuit-information-center.com. Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice routinely railroaded patients, like me, to Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic.

In addition to paying a massive fine to federal and state agencies, Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, continues to be targeted by shareholder and patient lawsuits. The Lawsuit Information Center, is encouraging patients to contact them to submit information regarding abuse they experienced in an Acadia Healthcare facility, which could lead to a lawsuit and compensation.

The types of abuse patients have experienced at Acadia Healthcare facilities includes being admitted when they didn’t need behavioral therapy, receiving substandard care, and being kept longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. There are also multiple lawsuits and investigations of sexual abuse involving patients and staff.

According to an article on the Lawsuit Information Center website: “One of the main strategies Acadia uses to boost profits is by keeping its staffing expenses down as much as possible. Acadia operates its facilities with the bare minimum of staff, resulting in widespread understaffing. This creates of host of issues, in addition to resulting in poor quality of care, it makes patients at Acadia residential facilities unsafe and vulnerable to being victimized.”

As early as 2017, the Tampa Bay Times was reporting on patient abuse at Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. Why hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice still dumps patients at the clinic is a question that needs to be answered by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s board of directors and administrators. For patients’ sake, the sooner they come clean the better.

February 3, 2025: A visit to North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic to pick up my medical records, gives me flashbacks of the horrible way I was abused by the doctors and nurses in the clinic and in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

This is a photo of North Tampa Behavioral Health. Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice routinelty dumps patients here at North Tampa Behavioral Health, which is part of a chain of treatment centers the Justice Department fined $20 million. Among the charges: 1) Admitting patients who didn't belong there; 2) Providing substandard care; 3) Keeping patient longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. — Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice routinelty dumps patients here at North Tampa Behavioral Health, which is part of a chain of treatment centers the Justice Department fined $20 million. Among the charges: 1) Admitting patients who didn’t belong there; 2) Providing substandard care; 3) Keeping patient longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies.

After Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic not surprisingly didn’t answer my phone calls and didn’t reply to messages I left requesting my medical records, I had to drive four hours round-trip to retrieve them. When I arrived, the desk person told me it would take five days for them to retrieve my records from an offsite location. I told her that I had a long drive from Venice and I didn’t want to have to repeat it. Miraculously, the administrators produced my records.

Visiting North Tampa Behavioral Clinic was disturbing to me. Thanks to the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I got to experience all the abuse that led the Justice Department to fine Acadia Healthcare $20 million dollars. With a dangerously broken face that was never treated at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice before I was stripped of my rights and railroaded to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, the doctors and nurses at the clinic admitted me when I didn’t belong there, provided no treatment for my facial injuries, and kept me longer than required so the company could bilk insurance companies.

Visiting the North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, took me right back to the miserable way I’d been treated. When I was kept there, I met a retired veteran who, too, was hastily dumped there by the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. They shipped him there so fast, his wife didn’t know where he was for hours and the hospital couldn’t track him down.

It’s great to see that Acadia Healthcare is paying a penalty for its crimes against patients. As it celebrates its so-called “Century of Caring”, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System should come clean about its role in this scandal.

January 29, 2025: Federal and state authorities continue to collect fines from the Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. The Florida Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit recently recovered millions of dollars for fraudulent activity at Acadia facilities. It would be to the benefit of all patients it the attorney general also investigated hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice that routinely railroaded patients who didn’t need psychiatric counseling to the treatment center.

Seems like every other week a federal or state organization fine or collects a fine from Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. According to an article posted online by Florida’s Voice, The Florida Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit recently recovered $2.2 million from Acadia Health for the usual reasons: admitting patients who didn’t belong in its clinics, providing substandard or harmful care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. With three clean and dangerous facial fractures — brow, eye socket and cheek — that went untreated for days after doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic I can personally vouch for the fraudulent activity.

A missing piece to the scandal is why did Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroad me and other patients who didn’t need behavioral health care to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic? Was it a culture of uncaring or kickbacks that motivated them? I think I’m getting closer to an answer.

It’s too bad I have to spend so much time on this critical issue. As a public hospital organization, Sarasota Memorial Health System’s board of directors and administratorss should have conducted an investigation, acknowledged the harm they’ve done to patients, and told us what they were going to do to fix it. Instead, they continue to stonewall.

So much for public service, ethical behavior and transparency by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, which, ironically, is celebrating its “Century of Caring”.

February 2, 2025: The more I investigate what Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health did to abuse me and other patients, the more worried I am for us all. My medical records point to a scandal. I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this so other patients don’t have to suffer. Three clean breaks to my face — brow, eye socket, cheek to the point that the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexes when I eat — and all they can do for me is say I received appropriate medical care while I was held against my will for five days, which prevented me from receiving critical medical care for my dangerous injuries. Scary to me and everyone in our area. No one at Sarasota Memorial Health System wants to come clean on this, but federal and state and legal investigations are going to eventually force their hands. Disgraceful. This is shameful for the Sarasota Memorial Health System, which is currently expanding into North Port.

January 28, 2025: Here’s a fascinating read for anyone who has been abused by an ER room like I was by the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. Shacelles Bonner, MD, an emergency room physician in New York, wrote this column — “I’m an ER Doctor. When I became a patient for the first time, I was shocked by the experience”. I, too was shocked in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice. The lack of concern for my health, welfare and humanity was truly, well, shocking. The fact that the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Health System isn’t coming clean, adds insult to injury. Dr. Bonner’s column gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone on the board of directors or in hospital administration at Sarasota Memorial Hospital System will have an epiphany and come clean about how they abused me and other patients I know as they ironically celebrate “A Century of Caring”. Anyone who thinks a public hospital is just about $$$ and expansion should quit immediately for the sake of all of us.

Read Dr. Bonner’s excellent article here.

January 27, 2025: Healthcare fraud at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice? Reviewing my medical records from my brief stay in the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I found numerous instances where the ER doctors and nurses falsified their reporting on my condition most likely to justify how they intimidated me into signing away my rights so they could railroad me to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. A New York Times investigation revealed last fall that Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, routinely pressured hospitals to falsify medical records to make referrals to its clinics seem more reasonable. The weirdness in my records begins with a bartender who said I only had two drinks and they’ve never seen me act out of the ordinary. Doesn’t sound like someone who needs rehab to me. The truth is Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice abused me and dumped me without treating my serious facial fractures. After I read my medical records last week, I submitted the following fraudulent medical records complaint to the office at Health and Human Services that investigates healthcare fraud. Read on:

On April 13, 2024, I fell in a restaurant in Venice, Florida. I came to in the Emergency Room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice. After a medical evaluation, doctors determined that I had serious facial fractures, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead of treating my dangerous injuries, the doctors decided to send me to North Tampa Behavioral Health to detox even though I was cooperative and fully aware of what was going on around me.

North TampaBehavioral Health is owned by Acadia Healthcare, which paid a$20 million fine to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing substandard or no care, and keeping patient longer than necessary. I experienced all three fraudulent activities.

Reviewing my health records, I found numerous instances where the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice falsified my medical records. According to a New YorkTimes report, falsifying medical records is standard practice for hospitals that want to dump patients at Acadia Healthcaret reatment centers.

Among the false claims in my medical records: 1.) The hospital claims in my discharge report that “The patient declined contact with family/friends to inform of his transfer to facility….” Actually, I asked the nurse in charge of my care for my phone several times and she refused to give it to me. At one point she snapped, “It’s not my fault you’re here.” I wanted the phone to inform my 87-year-old mother for whom I am caretaker of where I was and what the hospital was doing tome.

Finally, and after the hospital allowed four law officers to stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into Marchman Acting myself, a kind nurse gave me my phone. I have phone records that prove the first thing I did was call my mother. This proves that the hospital is lying when it says I “declined contact with family/friends”.

This statement is dangerous because the hospital is the party that wouldn’t let me communicate with the outside world, which would have kept me from Marchman Acting myself so I could receive prompt medical care for my dangerous injuries.

2.) The doctors and nurses claim that I was able to eat when I wasn’t given any food or water in the few hours I was in the hospital. This is probably a good thing because the upper right quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down due to the fact that it wasn’t anchored by my broken bones.

3.) The doctors and nurses claim that I was easily mobile and able to walk around the ward when they didn’t let me out of the hospital bed. This is probably a good thing because bruised ribs made any movement excruciating.

4.) The doctors and nurses claim that public safety officers and supervisors advised me of my rights before I Marchman Acted myself. Actually, they never spoke to me. I was handed a clipboard with the necessary forms and they stood in attention at the end of my bed. Their effort to intimidate me delayed me from getting the medical care I desperately needed for five weeks.

5.) The doctors and nurses reported that I was communicative and acted appropriate to my age. This undermines their decision to send me to detox when they had no idea what my medical history was. I have never been charged with a single crime in my entire life — and certainly not one related to drinking. In four hours, they had no sustainable basis for sending me to detox.

6.) The doctors and nurses state the my condition was stable before I was transferred to North Tampa Behavioral Health.This is odd because when I was finally able to see a facial surgeon four weeks later he said my face was still cleanly broken in my brow, eye socket and cheek. He said he should have seen me within 48 hours of the accident and rushed my surgery during which he installed titanium strips to rejoin my bones so they could heal.

In addition to reading the New York Times investigation articles about the scandalous relationship between hospitals andAcadia Healthcare facilities, I have met other patients and nurses who have told me that the way I was abused by the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is standard practice. I’m not sure whether the hospital is railroading patients to AcadiaHealthcare facilities because the ER department is dysfunctional or someone is receiving a kickback from Acadia Healthcare. I am asking you to investigate my experience so others don’t have to suffer the same fate.

January 23, 2025: According to the New York Times’ excellent series on the scandalous relationship between hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, and Acadia Healthcare, including its notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, are lying on patient records to ensure patients can easily be dumped at the treatment centers. Reviewing my medical history, I found numerous instances where the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice lied about me and my condition, which is a federal offense.

Last fall, the New York Times published an excellent series about Acadia Healthcare and how it conspired with hospitals to lie on patient records to justify their transfer to Acadia Healthcare facilities. Shortly after, the Justice Department fined Acadia Healthcare $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers. North Tampa Behavioral Clinic was one of the Acadia Healthcare facilities that was identified as one of the targeted facilities.

The trauma Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice put me through was so difficult to acknowledge that I delayed reviewing my medical records until now. (I’m also reviewing them for a third party. We’ll discuss this development at a later date.) During my review I found numerous instances where the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice falsified my medical records. For instance, they stated that my facial fractures — it’s not clear they even identified all three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek — were minor displacements when my facial surgeon told me four weeks later that the breaks were still clean and he put my repair surgery on a priority schedule.

The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital also claimed that I could eat when they didn’t serve me anything. This is probably a good thing because the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down due to my serious facial fractures. They also said that I had ease of motion and was able to walk in the ward, when I never left the bed the whole time I was there and the pain from bruised ribs was so excruciating I almost passed out when they moved me from the bed to a gurney.

Next, they said that I didn’t want to talk to any relatives when in fact I repeatedly asked for my cell phone so I could call my 87-year-old mother, for whom I am caretaker. The nurses repeatedly told me no, including the nurse in charge of my care who snapped, “It’s not my fault you’re here.” (I’ll never understand why she was so combative toward me. Other patients I know had similar experiences, so maybe its the ER’s dysfunctional culture.)

My discharge report states “The patient declined contact with family/friends to inform of his transfer to facility and has elected to inform family after being admitted to facility.” Actually, and perhaps unbeknownst to the head nurse who was consistently horrible to me, after multiple pleas, a kind nurse did slip me my phone and I was able to call my mother. I have phone records as proof the call was made.

Why is this important? Throughout my health records the hospital attempted to make me appear unreasonable and at some points combative when in reality I was very cooperative. My two main concerns while I was there were: 1) That my mother was aware of what happened to me so she could make alternate care plans and 2) That my serious facial fractures received immediate medical attention. I didn’t see how shipping me off to detox when I was sober enough to understand my situation and they didn’t know my health history — I have never been arrested or even approached by restaurant staff for being drunk or unruly — was to my advantage. The fact that I received no medical treatment for my injuries or even addiction counseling at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic indicates that no one really knows why I was there.

Another serious infraction on behalf of the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice was when they allowed four law officers to stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into Marchman Acting myself. I was angry, but not verbal, when they did this because I knew I didn’t need to be sent to a treatment center and it would delay treatment for my dangerous fractures. In fact, I stayed at the treatment center two days longer than required because I was concerned that I would be arrested — though I didn’t know for what — if I tried to leave when my required 72 hours of observation were up.

The bottom line here is that the way the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic abused me is textbook according to the New York Times’ series on Acadia Healthcare and the Justice Department’s investigation against the company.

Eager to warn the public, I’ve requested that the federal and state authorities investigate my case. I have seen absolutely no signs that the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has acknowledged this dangerous situation or taken steps to fix it. I have met other patients who had similar experiences and a few nurses who know the problem exists. Until Sarasota Memorial Hospital System comes clean, we’re all at risk of being abused.

January 23, 2025: I’m so excited! Despite what Sarasota Memorial Hospital patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal and PR (read whitewash) executive Kim Savage misled me to believe, the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is crooked. The department falsified my health records to dump me at the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic with an untreated, dangerously broken face — and I have the documents to prove it. This is very, very illegal, and the hospital doesn’t know where it tripped up. I do. And soon you will too. Patients I know and nurses I’ve encountered told me my story about being abused and dumped in the worst treatment center by the ER was accurate. Tune in later today for the details.

January 22, 2025: As you know, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is celebrating its “Century of Caring” this year. The celebration includes a webpage that invites patients to submit photos that capture the essence of their treatment at a Sarasota Memorial Hospital System facility. As someone who was denied care for serious facial fractures — brow, eye socket and cheek — in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, which instead dumped me at the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, I appreciate the opportunity to submit my special photos.

This photo of a Sarasota Memorial Hospital System Public Safety vehicle reminds me of the time Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice allowed law officers to intimidate me into signing away my rights, delaying critical medical care for dangerous facial fractures, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. This doesn't exactly demonstrate "A Century of Caring". Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has yet to acknowledge the problem or apologize to me and other patients who were abused in this manner. — Sarasota Memorial Hospital System Celebrates “A Century of Caring” by Allowing Law Officers to Intimidate Patients Into Signing Away Their Rights

This photo reminds me of how, after I fell and fractured my face so seriously my mouth flexed when I bit down, the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice decided the best course of action was to allow four law officers to stand at the end of my bed. Their role was to intimidate a 61-year-old man with a serious head injury (me) into signing away my right to freedom and crucial medical treatment.

Due to their efforts, my facial fractures were not tended to for five weeks. Sarasota Memorial Health System’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal sent me a letter that stated the clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek were minor bone displacements and I received appropriate medical care.

My facial specialist, who said he should have seen me within 48 hours of my fall, noted that my face was still cleanly broken five weeks later. The damage was so severe, he spent two hours implanting titanium strips to bring the bones together so they could heal.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has yet to admit fault or apologize for abusing me this way. They’ve worked over other patients I know in a similar fashion.

Despite all the public relations white-washing, the “Century of Caring” won’t truly start until they come clean about this scandalous behavior.

January 21, 2025: Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic — where Sarasota Memorial Hospital System routinely dumps patients — is closing a treatment center where several patients claim they were sexually abused by staff.

Acadia Healthcare, parent of the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, is closing the Timberline Knolls mental health treatment center in Lemont, Illinois. According to a CBS News Chicago report, several patients have accused former staffers of sexually abusing them.

Acadia bought Timberline Knolls, which provided mental health treatment to women and girls with eating disorders, substance abuse, trauma and sexual abuse, in 2012. According to the CBS report, “On at least eight occasions since 2020, the Lemont Police Department received reports from patients saying they had been sexually assaulted or abused, many of which involved juveniles.”

I’m not aware of sexual abuse charges against North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. But, thanks to the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice who railroaded me there without treating my dangerous facial fractures, I did witness the facility admitting patients who didn’t belong there (me), providing subpar care, and keeping us longer than necessary to bilk insurance providers. Acadia Healthcare paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for this fraudulent activity. North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic was one of the company’s facilities named in the charging document.

January 20, 2025: Happy Martin Luther King Day! MLK was a man who gave his soul to demand truth and justice for all Americans. The Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, which is corrupt when it comes to acknowledging patient abuse, should follow his example.

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true” — Martin Luther King

January 17, 2025: As part of Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s “Century of Caring” celebration, the hospital is asking patients who have received treatment at a Sarasota Memorial Hospital healthcare facility to submit photos that remind them of their stay. This is an excellent opportunity to illustrate how doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice (mis)treated me and other patients I know. (Something tells me the PR machine churning out unicorns at Sarasota Memorial Hospital System won’t post my photos. LOL!)

This photo features Larry Richardson, the author of this website, just after a facial surgeon spent two hours at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota implanting titanium strips to join cleanly broken bones in his eye socket and cheek that were broken in a fall. The surgery was delayed five weeks because doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice chose to send the patient to a treatment center, even though he was cooperative and eager to have his injuries treated, instead of treating his dangerous fractures. To add insult to injury, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal told the patient in a letter that the fractures were mildly displaced bones. Ummm, his facial surgeon didn’t think so. This picture is proof.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is celebrating its so-called “Century of Caring” by inviting patients to submit photos that remind them of the care they received. This is an excellent opportunity for those of us who were abused in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to alert the public about what’s really going on behind closed doors.

As you know, last April I fell in a downtown Venice, FL, restaurant. I woke up being wheeled into the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. The doctors and nurses determined that I had severe facial fractures, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek.

Instead of treating the dangerous injuries, they did to me what they’ve done to many of us: They used law officers to intimidate me into signing away my rights — including my right to appropriate medical care — and railroaded me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health where I languished in fear for five days without care. I say notorious because the clinic’s parent company, Acadia Healthcare, paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong there — yup — providing no care — yup — and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers — yuppers.

It’s a mystery to me why Sarasota Memorial Hospital System isn’t coming clean about what they did to me and other patients they abused the same way. The story will come out one day. For patients’ sake, let’s hope it’s before the “Second Century of Caring”.

Public hospitals that receive our tax dollars and protection from malpractice lawsuits have a special duty to come clean when they’re involved in scandals that harm patients’ physically and mentally. I’m looking forward to posting more photos to take us all down memory lane.

January 16, 2025: States and the federal government divvy up the $20 million dollar settlement paid by Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, for abusing patients.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued a press release this week announcing that Federal Government and states are sharing the $20 million fine Acadia Healthcare, parent of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, paid for submitting false claims to government healthcare programs. The Justice Department fined Acadia for fraud committed at its facilities in Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.

According to the press release, the settlement resolves allegations involving multiple Acadia facilities, including North Tampa Behavioral Health in Wesley Chapel. Allegations against the facilities include:

Admitting patients to the facility who were not eligible for inpatient treatment;
Failing to discharge patients who no longer needed inpatient care;
Excessive lengths of inpatient stays;
Inadequate staffing and insufficient staff training and supervision, resulting in assaults, elopements, suicides, and other patient harm; and
Failing to provide inpatient care per federal and state regulations, such as failing to develop individual treatment plans, failing to provide active treatment, including individual and group therapy, and failing to provide adequate discharge planning.

The fraudulent activity occurred in 2017, but, as I and other patients dumped at North Tampa Behavioral Health by Sarasota Memorial Hospital can attest, it still continues. Thanks to the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice who sent me to the treatment center instead of treating dangerous breaks to my brow, eye socket and cheek, I experienced the fraudulent activity firsthand. I was admitted without cause, received no care, and was kept longer than necessary.

Federal and state investigations continue into Acadia’s fraudulent activities. Shareholders are filing a lawsuit to recoup the money they lost due to Acadia misrepresenting how it profited by mistreating patients.

One day the scandal involving Sarasota Memorial Hospital System and Acadia Healthcare will be revealed through government investigations or the courts. Or, maybe, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System will come clean about its role in abusing patients by stripping them of their rights and sending them to North Tampa Behavioral Health. This will be a great development for patients in Sarasota County.

January 15, 2025: A West Palm Beach TV station continues its excellent reporting about the negative effects patients suffer when hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital, rob patients of their rights so they can be held against their will in treatment facilities, like North Tampa Behavioral Clinic.

This week, WPTV reporter Katie LaGrone, continues the station’s excellent news coverage of the many ways patients are harmed when hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital, rob them of their rights and railroad them to treatment centers. Last month WPTV told the harrowing tale of a young veteran who was committed against his will. The experience caused him to fear seeking professional help for battle-related PTSD. Sadly, his mental health issues led him to commit suicide.

This week’s report covers another young veteran who was committed against his will. Don Stiff, a former U.S. Marine, told WPTV he’ll never seek mental health treatment at a VA clinic again because he was committed against his will. “At first, I didn’t know what was going on,” he told the reporter. “But I figured it out pretty quick when I couldn’t leave. I’m like, what did I say? I’m thinking to myself, what the heck did I do?”

As someone who was abused in the same way by doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I can tell you with great certainty that being committed against your will to a treatment center is traumatic. It gives you PTSD, depression and anxiety and makes you less willing to seek medical treatment of any sort when you need it.

Despite the fact that many patients, including me, have been abused, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is in no way taking this issue seriously. The hospital’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal said I received appropriate medical care despite the fact that the hospital allowed four law officers to intimidate me into signing away my rights under the Marchman Act. The end result was that I didn’t get the urgent medical care I needed for dangerous, clean breaks to my brow, eye socket and cheek for weeks.

My experience combined with the veterans who were abused under the Baker Act and Marchman Act prove that Florida hospitals are too quick to rob patients of their rights. With Sarasota Memorial Hospital accepting no responsibility to the harm its inflicted on us, it’s time for federal and state authorities to investigate this dangerous practice.

January 14, 2025: Happy 100th Birthday Sarasota Memorial Hospital! What a great opportunity to come clean about the patients you abused when you railroaded them to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic!

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System announced this week that it plans to celebrate its 100th birthday under the theme “A Century of Caring”. As someone who was the victim of brutal uncaring at the hands of the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s emergency room, I’m inviting Sarasota Memorial Health Care System to add one feature to its centennial celebration: An acknowledgement of the abuse, an apology to the patients who were victimized, and an explanation of how you’re going to fix the problem.

As you know, I and other patients turned to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to provide us with medical treatment for serious health emergencies. Instead of the caring we desperately needed, the doctors and nurses in the emergency room treated us with disdain, robbed us of our rights, and shipped us off to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, which recently paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing substandard care, and holding them for longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Thanks to the dedicated doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I got to experience all three fraudulent acts when I should have been treated immediately for dangerous facial fractures to the brow, eye socket and cheek.

To add insult to injury, the hospital’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal told me in a letter that the hospital investigated my case and determined that I received appropriate medical treatment for my injuries. The facial surgeon I saw five weeks later disagreed. He said my fractures were still clean broken, saw that the upper left quadrant of my mouth still flexed due to the breaks, and spent two hours in the surgical suite repairing the damage that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic ignored — at great physical and mental expense to me.

So, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, fill the conference room with balloons, blow out the candles, and cut the cake. If you have a shred of decency, it won’t seen quite right until you come clean about how you willfully abused patients and wrecked their lives. Wouldn’t it be cool if a federal investigation or trial revealed the truth and righted this wrong before you enter your next “Century of Caring”?

January 13: 2025: Why doesn’t Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic take the role of senior caretaker seriously?

I’ve missed posting on SMHDanger.com the last week and a half due to a bout of the upper respiratory ailment that’s going around Southwest Florida. The illness starts as a dry cough then progresses to uncontrolled coughing with a low-grade fever.

I wasn’t the only one in the house suffering from it. My 87-year-old mother, for whom I am caretaker, also contracted it. What’s dangerous for a 61-year-old man is life-threatening to an elder.

To stop it before it got out of hand, I visited my general practitioner. She evaluated my symptoms and gave me the medicine necessary to combat the illness and function just enough to look after myself and my mother. My mother did the same, and we’re both recovering.

This whole experience brought flashbacks of the horrible experience I had in the ER and Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. After I fell in a downtown restaurant, I awoke in the ER at the hospital and was diagnosed with three clean breaks to my face — brow, eye socket and cheek. A brusk nurse told me I would have to be in the hospital for days. I thought she meant so doctors could treat my face, but it she actually, and unbelievably, meant so I could languish in North Tampa Behavioral Treatment Clinic without much-needed medical treatment.

When I heard this, my first concern was for my 87-year-old mother. She doesn’t have anyone but me to care for her locally. I told the nurse I couldn’t be away for days. Instead of offering to work with me on this important point, the nurse said, “It’s not our fault you’re here.”

“It’s not our fault you’re here.”

What does that even meant? I asked for my phone and was told they wouldn’t give it to me. I pleaded, they refused. After a while, a young, less-hardened nurse, slipped me my phone, and I was able to tell my mother what happened, where I was, and that I would figure out what to do to see she received the support she needed. When I was finished, they confiscated my phone, lined up law officers at the end of my bed, and intimidated me into committing myself to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

The callous treatment I received at the hands of Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice was shocking. When I arrived at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, I received a second dose. At intake, I asked a slick psychiatrist if I could call my mother to let her know where I was and to make sure she was ok. He said, you guessed it: “It’s not our fault you’re here.”

The cold callousness of the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic is both shocking and disgusting. It’s also institutionalized–at least at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. They’ve been nasty to others I know in our community. After I sent an email telling Sarasota Memorial Hospital administrators of my horrible experience, they responded by telling me that I received appropriate medical care.

I look forward to exposing what’s really going on at the hospital this year. The New York Times and Justice Department have already done a magnificent job of uncovering the rot at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. The list includes admitting patients who don’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Thanks to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, I experienced all three.

Stay tuned.

January 2, 2025: Noah Lewis, a staff writer at Eagle Media, the student news site of Florida Gulf Coast University, published an excellent opinion piece yesterday regarding the many ways forcing patients to Baker Act themselves is hurting overall mental health treatment in Florida.

“Thoughts on the Shortcomings of the Baker Act”, an excellent opinion piece by Noah Lewis, staff writer at Eagle Media, the student news site of Florida Gulf Coast University, explores the many ways that the Baker Act is harming the quality of mental health treatment in Florida. As someone who was intimidated by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice into signing away his rights under the Marchman Act, which is very similar to the Baker Act, I can tell you Lewis’ take is on the mark.

Lewis writes that the Baker Act allows just about anyone — judges, law officers, and teachers — who comes in contact with a person in need to unilaterally take away their freedom. He argues that the only people with clinical mental health training should be allowed to possess this sweeping power over another.

Lewis is concerned that such a casual approach to committing people has led to people being committed who don’t belong in mental health facilities at the expense of people who really do need mental health treatment.

“To conclude, Florida has a long way to go in its treatment of those struggling with mental health,” Lewis writes. “Florida’s law around mental health is some of the worst in the country and it is only a matter of time until something changes. The victims of this system need it, I hope and pray for them that help is coming.”

I totally agree with Lewis’ conclusion. Until Florida law is reformed to allow patients and mental health professionals a greater say in Baker Acting them, patients like me, who needed immediate treatment for three clean breaks in my face, not mental health treatment, hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, will continue to dump us at mental health treatment facilities, like North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, at great risk to our physical and mental health.

December 30, 2024: The Best and Worst of 2024 features Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic.

The Best Thing That Happened to Me in 2024: A caring, competent surgeon installed titanium in my face to rejoin bones that were cleanly broken in my eye socket and cheek.

The Worst Thing That Happened to Me in 2024 (and my entire life): Doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice admitted me after a fall and instead of treating three facial fractures in my brow, eye socket and cheek, railroaded me to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, where I suffered for five days with dangerous, untreated injuries.

The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s medical malpractice delayed my ability to receive appropriate medical care for five weeks.

I have received no acknowledgment and no apology from the hospital board, administration or staff.

December 26, 2024: When you suffer PTSD from a traumatic experience, like I had at the hands of Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, flashbacks are a common occurrence. Here’s one barbaric practice that can easily be fixed by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System.

I read a great article today about how North Carolina is investing millions of dollars to fix a problem that discourages people experiencing a mental health emergency from seeking help. According to the Psychology Today article, the state is spending $20 million to stop relying on law enforcement to shackle patients and transfer them in police cars to treatment facilities. They’re making the investment because this type of transfer criminalizes and unduly traumatizes mental health patients.

Cheers to them. Sarasota Memorial Hospital should follow their example.

After I fell at a Venice, Florida, restaurant and was knocked unconscious, I woke up in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and was told I had serious facial fractures. Instead of doing the right thing and treating the fractures, the doctors and nurses decided for reasons beyond me to send me to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, where I lived in fear for five days without appropriate care.

One of my PTSD flashbacks — in addition to the nurse announcing to everyone on the ward that the hospital couldn’t treat me and the four law officers at the end of my bed used to intimidate me into signing away my rights — involves how I was transported. A private ambulance company sent two attendants to my room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. I hadn’t posed a problem to anyone at the hospital. I was calm, cooperative, and eager to have my fractures treated. My wrists were never tied to the hospital bed.

The attendants, however, said they had to tie my wrists to the bed because it was company policy. I looked humiliated and horrified and they looked embarrassed as they tied my wrists. They left them so loose it was like they weren’t tied at all, but the symbolism was powerful. A 61-year-old man with a serious head injury was being abused and incarcerated against his free will.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has never acknowledged the damage they inflicted on my mental and physical health during my brief stay there. My dream is one day they will do the honest and honorable thing, which is what you’d expect of a public hospital system. In the meantime, I hope they’ll start treating patients like human beings, not livestock, and stop allowing this barbaric behavior on their property.

We’ll talk more about my PTSD flashbacks in columns to come.

December 24, 2024: Here’s my Christmas wish for the administrators at the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System and the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, where they dump patients like me with life-threatening injuries.

(Beautiful downtown Venice, Florida, on a foggy Christmas and Hanukkah Season night.)

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The truth shall set you free.

Looking forward to continuing my quest to warn the public Thursday, since you’re not coming clean about what you did to me and Lord knows how many other poor souls.

December 23, 2024: Um, Sarasota Memorial Hospital, we have a problem. Nurses I meet are confirming what I already knew firsthand: The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice routinely shipps patients off to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic who don’t belong there.

The good thing about a small city like Venice, Florida, is everyone seems to know everyone — especially us locals. The bad thing for the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is they tend to talk freely with one another.

Last week, I met a nurse at a downtown restaurant who told me my horrific experience at the hands of ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice wasn’t unusual. The hospital’s ER is known for improperly railroaded patients to treatment centers, like the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Clinic who aren’t in need of addiction treatment. Another nurse told a friend that she “didn’t want to go there” when the friend asked her about the abuse I received.

This actually comes as no surprise to me. After I fell in downtown Venice and was knocked out cold, I came to in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. The doctors and nurses determined I had facial fractures — including three clean breaks in the brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead of treating my dangerous injuries, they shipped me off to North Tampa Behavioral Clinic, where I languished in fear for five days without any attention paid to my facial injuries — other than a nurse saying “Don’t sleep on your left side, your face is fractured.”

In the clinic, I met a retired veteran who said he went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice for chest pains and to discuss an alcohol problem. The doctors and nurses said they were going to admit him. While his wife went home to get belongings, he was railroaded to the North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. It took her several frantic hours to locate him.

Another retired veteran told me she went seeking help for pleurisy, a painful inflammation of the lung, last Christmas Eve day. Instead of treating her excruciating condition, the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice tried to intimidate her into signing papers that would have allowed them to dump her at North Tampa Behavioral Clinic. She smartly refused. They let her out the hospital’s back entrance and, in great pain, she had to walk around the hospital to her car. She received appropriate treatment at an urgemed.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal told me in a letter that I — with a face so severely broken that my mouth flexed when I ate — was stabilized and received appropriate medical treatment before the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped me at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. I strongly doubt another hospital would say a 61-year-old man with a head injury and flexible face is stable or receiving appropriate medical treatment.

Christmas is a great time to atone for one’s sins against humanity. The doctors and nurses who mistreated me and others at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Clinic are welcome to perform a Christmas miracle and contact me to come clean. Allowing beancounters and lawyers to own your soul and convince you to abuse others is a sin.

My guess is this rot is all going to be exposed in court one day, so why not confess to us now so we can fix the problem before even more patients suffer physical and mental health abuse?

December 20, 2024: Recommended reading about the importance of compassionate care for the doctors and nurses in Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venices emergency care center and the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic — where they dumped patients like me.

Emergency room doctor Diane Birnbaumer wrote an excellent piece about the need for doctors and nurses in emergency care centers to remember they went into medicine to provide patients with compassionate care. As a victim of non-compassionate or competent care at the hands of the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, it was interesting for me to see a doctor’s take on why they forget to treat patients as humans instead of a filled bed.

I don’t want to comment to heavily about Dr. Birnbaumer’s touching story about a family in crisis, but — SPOILER ALERT — I do want to include her lesson for those who won’t take the time to read the article:

“…Administrative bean counters reduced my performance to counting how many patients I saw per hour and how many tests I ordered. When I became an emergency physician, I had been all in on taking on the hard work and the erratic schedule, the difficult decisions and the busy shifts that went with the job. Over time, though, I had let the demands of a changing, overstressed and broken system knock me off course.” Dr. Birnbaumer bravely admitted that she’d lost the caring and compassionate nature that led her to seek a career in medicine in the first place.

Maybe that’s why the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic without treating three serious fractures in my face — brow, eye socket and cheek. And maybe that’s why the doctors and nurses at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic kept me living in fear for five days without the medical care I desperately needed. And maybe that’s why the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System — including the patient (read hospital) advocate and public relations administrator refuse to acknowledge what they did to me was wrong, apologize and tell me what they’re going to do to fix it.

I dare both facilities to stop being bean counter and attorney marionettes and come clean about the physical and mental abuse they inflected on me and many other patients. I don’t expect them to — without a trial — but it would be nice if, like Dr. Birnbaumer, they admitted they lost their humanity and they want it back.

As Scrooge learned, the people we encounter in life really do matter, and it’s never too late to change.

December 19, 2024: Thank you, Paris Hilton, for bravely standing up for patients abused by treatment centers and helping to convince the U.S. House to pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act.

As someone’s who’s actively engaged in combatting the patient abuse I experienced in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I can tell you that watching Paris Hilton convince the U.S. House of Representatives to overwhelmingly pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act fills me with hope.

Hilton was enormously brave in testifying about the abuse she suffered for two years in Utah facility where she was subjected to sexual abuse, physical abuse, force feeding and solitary confinement. What she didn’t receive there was the mental health treatment she needed to overcome the ADHD that was at the root of her mental health challenges.

The bipartisan bill calls on the Department of Health & Human Services to increase transparency while improving the health, safety and care of youth in residential treatment programs. After the bill was passed, Hilton said, “I just had tears flooding down my face, I was just so excited…[it] felt like a dream…something that I’ve been praying for every night for years.”

After the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital refused to treat three clean facial fractures — brow, eye socket, cheek — I sustained in a fall, and, instead, railroaded me to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Center, where I received no care and lived in fear for five days, I firmly believe reform is needed.

The Justice Department has already fined Acadia Healthcare, parent of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Thanks to the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice I was able to experience all three fraudulent practices in person. Shareholders and patients are now lining up to sue Acadia.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, on the other hand, has so far escaped public scrutiny — other than what you read here on SMHDanger.com — for its part in the growing scandal. At some point, I hope the administration is forced to admit the hospital has a problem, apologize to those of us who suffered at the hands of its doctors and nurses, and tell us what they’re going to do to fix it.

In the meantime, I hope Congress expands to the goals of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act to cover all hospitals and adult residential facilities, too. The system we have now is too dangerous to ignore.

December 18, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s newly expanded emergency room has me wondering: Did the doctors and nurses patient dump me at notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic because they ran out of space?

When I reflect on my too brief stay at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice before the doctors and nurses dumped me at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I have to wonder if I was railroaded because they ran out of beds. The ER there just expanded to 61 beds from 28.

From the moment I woke up in the ER shortly after being knocked out in a fall at a downtown Venice restaurant in April, I remember a lot of details. I remember asking the nurse wheeling me into the ER if I hurt anyone. She snapped “No, but you gave the paramedics a tough time.” I don’t remember any of it. I was knocked out in a fall so severe I fractured my face, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek.

I remember having a CAT scan taken of my head. I remember asking nurses if I could have my phone so I could call my 87-year-old mother — I’m her caretaker — to tell her where I was. I remember the nurses saying no for no apparent reason. I remember asking another nurse and having her tell me no, too.

I remember an elderly man in pajamas being wheeled in who said he was getting out of bed when he fell backward and hit his head on the floor. And I remember the rude nurse shouting at me, “We can’t take care of you here, so we’re sending you to another facility.” I remember thinking it was going to be a competent hospital that would do what it takes to treat my head injury and facial fractures.

I remember being shocked when four law officers stood at the end of my bed to intimidate me — a 61-year-old man with serious injuries — into signing away my rights so they could ship me off to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I remember a nurse, in a bold move that for a moment broke the harsh culture of the ER, giving me my phone so I could finally call my mother. I remember the nurse telling me I had to give my phone back.

I remember male and female ambulance attendants wheeling a gurney into my room. I remember the extreme pain I felt in my face and bruised ribs when I moved from the hospital bed to the gurney. And I remember them tying my wrists to the bed, even though I hadn’t posed a threat to anyone. To the attendants’ credit, they showed me the second crumb of mercy I experienced in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice when they tied my wrists loosely to the rails.

The moment that makes me wonder if the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice patient dumped me at great risk to my life and health was when the elderly man was wheeled in. He was stuck in the hallway, apparently because there wasn’t a room available.

In light of the ER’s recent expansion, the need to free up my room — even though I hadn’t been stabilized or received any treatment for my serious injuries — is the only remotely rational reason for what they did to me. I mean I wasn’t causing trouble, I was eager to have my fractures treated by competent medical professionals, and I had excellent insurance. If I remember everything that happened to me in the ER, I obviously was of sound mind and should have had more of a say in how they (mis)treated me. Using cops to bully me into signing away my rights to decide my fate was just plain wrong. That they ignored me and shipped me off to a facility that could do nothing to treat my injuries is absolutely chilling.

December 17, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice doubled the number of Emergency Care Center beds this week. Now will it come clean about how it actually treats patients?

Administrators, doctors and nurses gathered for a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday to open Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s newly expanded emergency room. The $90 million project doubled the number of emergency care center beds to 61 from 28.

As someone who was abused in April by the doctors and nurses at the Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice emergency care center, I hope that the expansion comes with a new approach to treating patients — one that’s caring, not callous.

After I fell in a downtown Venice restaurant, I was knocked out. When I came to in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I was told that I had facial fractures, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. The breaks were so severe the upper left half of my mouth flexed when I ate.

Instead of treating my dangerous fractures — as I’m sure they would more visibly broken arms, legs and backs — the doctors and nurses in the Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice ER, allowed four law officers to stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into signing away my rights so they could ship me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I suffered in silence for five days without care for my dangerous injuries in the clinic.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal said in a letter that the care I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice was medically appropriate. That’s pretty frightening when you consider my facial fractures were still cleanly broken and my mouth was still flexing when a facial surgeon saw me five weeks later. He put my surgery on a rush schedule and, in a two hour operation, installed titanium strips to rejoin the bones so they could heal.

I’m not the only patient who was treated with callous disregard for my mental and physical well-being. A retired veteran I met in the clinic said the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded him to the clinic so fast hospital staff and his wife couldn’t locate him for hours. Another retired veteran told me she went to the ER seeking help for pleurisy, a painful inflammation of the lung, when the doctors and nurses tried to railroad her. She refused to sign the papers and escaped out a back door. She found appropriate and effective treatment at an urgemed.

The point here is Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s expanded ER is a gift to the community if they reform their culture and start treating patients with the same care and respect they’d give to their own family and friends. (Which I’m pretty sure doesn’t include sending their grandfather with a broken face to a behavioral treatment center.) If they don’t come clean and reform their culture, we’re all at risk they’ll worsen our physical and mental health.

December 16, 2024: MIRRORINDY, a non-profit investigative journalist organization in Indiana, recently published several articles about patient abuse at Acadia Healthcare-owned Options Behavioral Health Hospital in Indiana. After Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice neglected to treat three clean facial fractures — brow, eye socket and cheek — but instead railroaded me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, also an Acadia-owned facility, I experienced or witnessed many of the Indiana facility’s patient complaints. Patients in our area won’t be safe until the negligence at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic stops.

Since September, MirrorIndy, a non-profit investigative journalism organization in Indiana, has published three articles recounting patient abuse at Options Behavioral Health Hospital, which is owned by Acadia Healthcare. The article titles tell the story: 1. “Indy mental health facility was ‘kennel for vulnerable people,’ patient says.” 2. “‘Treated more like an animal’: More troubling stories at Indy mental health facility.” 3. “Options and Acadia sex abuse allegations what you need to know: Former patients and employees described widespread abuse and other problems at the mental health facility.”

The articles recount what’s pretty standard treatment at Acadia’s hands. As I experienced when Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded my to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic instead of treating my serious facial fractures, the patients in the MirrorIndy articles say they received little or no care and were kept longer than necessary so their insurers could be bilked.

The MirrorIndy articles report clinic brutality toward patients that I fortunately didn’t experience. A patient says the staff berated her and took nude photos of her that she can’t locate. Another says he was assaulted for his phone passcode. And others say they were sexually abused.

Many clinicians back up patient allegations of systemic mistreatment.

None of this surprises me. In my case I wasn’t physically abused, maybe because the staff already knew I had dangerous facial fractures and could suffer a stroke or bleed out. Instead I was ignored for five crucial days when I should have been receiving medical treatment.

All of us patients who experienced physical or mental health abuse at the hands of Acadia Healthcare facilities (and in my case Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice), deserve a public apology. In addition, the facilities need to acknowledge they have a problem and tell us what they’re going to do to fix them. Until they do this, we’re all at risk.

We’re waiting.

We’re waiting.Sarasota County Public Hospital Board: Sharon Wetzler DePeters, Britt Riner, Sarah Lodge, Gregory Carter, James Meister. President and CEO: David Verinder. Patient Advocate: Brian Peal, Public Relations Director, Kim Savage, Dr. Reuben Holland, medical director of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Emergency and Urgent Care Centers.

December 13, 2024: The tragedy of a young veteran committing suicide after he was involuntarily Baker Acted at a Florida VA hospital should spur the state to investigate how often hospitals are abusing the law. After my horrible experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I can tell you health facilities are taking the Baker Act too lightly.

WPTV, a West Palm Beach TV station, ran an article on its website today about the tragic suicide of a US Marine who sought treatment for battle-related PTSD at a Florida VA hospital. According to the report, Jordan Hunkin recognized he needed help and drove to Malcom Randall VA hospital in Gainesville, FL. His intention was to enroll in a long-term voluntary treatment program for depression and PTSD.

A few days later, he called a close friend and was frantic. He said he didn’t understand why the hospital Baker Acted him. The friend said Jordan was “tackled and restrained and held for three days.”

After his horrible experience, Jordan was discharged and never again sought help for his mental health challenges. Six months later, he committed suicide, leaving his friends and family to force the VA to investigate his case. His mother said, “You threw my son under the bus. You didn’t take care of him.”

The VA’s inspector general released a report that stated Jordan was incorrectly Baker Acted and his rights were violated. The report also said the hospital staff was not adequately trained to Baker Act patients and there was no administrative oversight.

Jordan’s friend told WPTV that “This seems like a way bigger issue.” He’s right. My experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic is very similar to Jordan’s experience.

After falling and getting knocked out at a Venice, FL, restaurant, I woke up in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. ER doctors and nurses evaluated me and determined that I had multiple fractures in my face, including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. The breaks were so severe that the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down.

Instead of treating my serious injuries, they allowed four law officers to stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into Marchman Acting myself. Just like the Baker Act, the Marchman Act calls for a patients to surrender their rights for 72 hours.

Minutes after I signed the papers, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. There, I languished for five days without appropriate medical care. The whole time I was fearful that I would bleed out or suffer a stroke. When I finally saw a facial surgeon, he said I should have seen him within 48 hours of my fall. He operated on my face, installing titanium strips to bring the bones in my face back close enough together to heal.

While I’m certainly not suicidal, I definitely have PTSD, depression and extreme anxiety from what the hospital and clinic did or better yet didn’t do to treat me. I know of at least two other Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice ER patients who were treated the same way.

What Jordan’s tragic experience — and mine — tells me is the state or federal government need to conduct a broad investigation into misuse of the Baker Act in Florida healthcare facilities. The Justice Department already fined Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its mental health clinics, providing subpar care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers.

That’s a start. Now it’s time to move to the next step and expose the entire rotten practice to prevent any more patients from being abused.

December 12, 2024: Falsifying patient records, as alleged in the latest New York Times investigative report on Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, is fraud and a major breach of patient trust.

The New York Times continued its excellent series of reports on Acadia Healthcare, parent company of notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, this week with an article titled “Fraud and Faker at the Country’s Largest Chain of Methadone Clinics”. The article, which unfortunately is behind a paywall, is subtitled “Acadia Healthcare falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enroll people who aren’t addicted to opiods, a Times investigation found.”

One hundred current and former employees told the Times that Acadia often fails to provide the psychiatric counseling required when patient receive methadone. “Instead,” the Times article said, “employees at times falsify the medical records that Acadia uses to bill insurers, according to the employees and internal emails.”

After the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, instead of treating my clean facial fractures in my brow, eye socket and cheek, I met with a psychiatrist once, and only briefly for an intake interview. I was told I would see him again, but I never did, which kind of makes sense because I didn’t belong there to begin with. (Thank you, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.) Instead, I languished without care for five days in a facility owned by a company that paid the Justice Department $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurers.

The problem with faking patient records is that clinicians rely on records to establish where a patient is in the recovery process and what needs to be done to move them further along on the road to wellness. With fake records, there’s no way to know exactly where a patient stands without starting the interview and evaluation process all over again.

Once I met a retired veteran who was also railroaded to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I began to suspect some kind of scandal, and I lost trust in both the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic and Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. Another major problem for the clinic is that there have been reports that Acadia sales representatives pressured ER doctors and nurses to claim patients were difficult or belligerent before they were shipped off to one of Acadia’s clinics.

The fact that records have been routinely falsified by Acadia clinicians isn’t only a problem for patients. When patients bring malpractice lawsuits against Acadia, and the list of patient lawsuits is growing, patients will be able to dispute every fact in their medical records. Without accurate records, Acadia has no way to establish the case that it acted in good faith. This could be true of other referring healthcare providers, including Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, when they inevitably face lawsuits for shipping patients off to Acadia without cause, as they did in my case.

Every healthcare provider involved in this scandal needs to come clean so patients, like me, can overcome the PTSD, anxiety, and depression that come from being abused by hospitals and clinics that are supposed to be treating us, not beating us down.

December 10, 2024: Sorry, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, but “I’m sorry you feel that way” isn’t an appropriate apology for failing to treat a 61-year-old man with a head injury and multiple facial fractures.

The last couple of months, I’ve been corresponding with Brian Peal, Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s patient (read hospital) advocate, and Kim Savage, the hospital system’s public relations director. At some point in our email discussions, they’ve made the following statements regarding my extreme dismay at the way ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice didn’t treat my head injury or serious facial fractures — including clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek — but, instead, shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, where I suffered without appropriate medical treatment for five days:

“I am sorry you feel that way.” — Kim Savage

“We are sorry that our team and the behavioral health facility in Tampa did not fully meet your expectations.” — Brian Peal

Something about their statements really grated on me. It felt like being abused all over again by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System. Unable to put my finger on what was troubling me, I turned to our old friend Artificial Intelligence. I asked AI “What does sorry you feel this way mean?”

Much to my surprise, AI nailed what was bugging me with the following answer:

Sorry you feel this way” is often interpreted as a way of acknowledging someone’s negative feelings without necessarily taking responsibility for causing them, essentially saying “I understand you’re upset, but I don’t agree that my actions caused it” – which can come across as dismissive or even a way to deflect blame, making it considered a “non-apology apology” in many situations.

Key points about this phrase:

Not a full apology: It doesn’t directly address the issue or take responsibility for the other person’s feelings.
Can be perceived as dismissive: By placing the focus on the other person’s feelings as the problem, it can make them feel invalidated.
May be used to avoid conflict: Someone might say this to try and shut down a conversation without addressing the underlying issue.

The AI answer is totally on-point. No one at the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is taking my situation seriously. Instead, they’re placing all the blame for what happened on me, the abused, using talking points that I’m sure a whole team of lawyers created. This level of deception is at the very least disappointing from a public hospital system that’s supposed to be accountable and transparent.

I ended my latest correspondence with Kim Savage by telling her: “The simple fact at the root of our disagreement is that instead of treating a 61-year-old man with a head injury and three clean facial fractures, your ER railroaded me to a treatment center where I lived in fear and pain without appropriate treatment for five days. That’s just wrong. And, as a journalist, PR professional, and crisis communications consultant, I can tell you with great certainty, there’s no way to spin this in the hospital’s favor. I recommend you come clean and fulfill your obligation to transparency and accountability.”

I’m sure the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System will never willingly own up to what did it did to me and other patients I know. It would be too great a blow to the institutional ego of an A-rated hospital system with a 60 percent patient approval rating. Hmmmm. That’s why we have to spend an enormous amount of time contacting federal and state regulatory agencies, the media, and law firms to get them to do the right thing. Oh, and if the local media isn’t taking the issue seriously, creating our own websites, like SMHDanger.com, to apply pressure.

I’m going to keep plugging away until the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic come clean about mistreating patients. In the meantime, officials at both healthcare institutions might want to take a moment to ask AI “What is ethical behavior?” The robot just might teach them how to treat human patients better.

Sarasota County Public Hospital Board: Sharon Wetzler DePeters, Britt Riner, Sarah Lodge, Gregory Carter, James Meister. President and CEO: David Verinder. Patient Advocate: Brian Peal, Public Relations Director, Kim Savage, Dr. Reuben Holland, medical director of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Emergency and Urgent Care Centers.

December 9, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital should think twice before railroading patients to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, whose parent company, Acadia Healthcare, is the subject of yet another New York Times article about patient abuse at the company’s clinics.

The New York Times continued in its quest to uncover rot at Acadia Healthcare facilities. Yesterday, the venerable newspaper published an article titled National Chain of Drug Clinics Deals in Deceit — Acadia Fakes Records, Times Inquiry Finds. The article, which is unfortunately behind a paywall, reveals how Acadia, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, routinely falsified patient treatment records at some of its 165 methadone clinics. According to the times report, Acadia distributed methadone to patients who weren’t eligible to receive it and neglected to provide required psychiatric counseling to them all for the sake of fraudulently billing insurers.

A recently retired counselor at an Acadia methadone clinic in Oregon told the paper, “I’m not proud of it, but our clinic has admitted patients who shouldn’t have qualified for treatment because we were under pressure.” Another counselor said, “Acadia’s fraudulent practices imperiled patients’ recoveries. It sent the very clean message to patients that they were just dollar signs.”

The Times latest report comes on the heels of articles earlier this fall that exposed Acadia’s behavioral treatment clinics for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing subpar care, and holding them longer than necessary to bilk insurers. The Justice Department hit Acadia with a $20 million fine for these fraudulent practices. Federal and state investigators are piling on and shareholders are building a class-action lawsuit against the company. In addition, patients who were abused at Acadia facilities are signing up with law firms to sue the company.

I don’t say “alleged wrongdoings” in my articles because, thanks to the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I experienced all of these fraudulent practices when the hospital sent me to Acadia’s North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. Instead of treating three clean breaks — in my brow, eye socket and cheek that ultimately required a two-hour surgery to repair — I sustained in a fall, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded me to the clinic. For five days there, I went without any medical treatment for my injuries and was kept two-days belong the original 72 hour “sentence”.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic clearly violated my rights, put my life and health at risk, and committed fraud by billing Florida Blue under the false pretense that I received appropriate medical care. To protect patients, both healthcare organizations deserve greater scrutiny from federal and state regulators.

December 6, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital should explore all other avenues before involuntarily committing patients.

When I woke up in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, my opinion of the right course of action to treat the facial fractures — including three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek — I sustained in a fall was immediately ignored. Being the only sane person in the room, my preference was to have my dangerous fractures treated, not to have four law officers stand at the end of my bed and intimidate me into committing myself so the hospital could railroad me to the notorious Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

The fact that the doctors and nurses were so dismissive of the importance of giving me a say in my treatment was shocking. The mental health community is pretty much in agreement that seizing a patient’s freedom can be extremely damaging to their mental health. A Psychology Today article published this year points out that “the experience of psychiatric hospitalizations can be traumatic, and the quality of treatment is often poor.”

In addition the article says:”Research has shown that perceived coercion during a psychiatric hospitalization correlates with suicide attempts upon discharge (Jordan and McNeil, 2020). There is no evidence that these paternalistic practices improve outcomes in any way. Rather, these add a punitive element to the hospital stay.”

While I’m certainly not suicidal, I am still experiencing PTSD, anxiety and depression from Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s bad decision to send me to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I was kept under lock and key there for five days. I saw a psychiatrist briefly and received no treatment for my facial fractures — which, in itself, made me live in fear.

I alone know two other patients who were man-handled in a similar way by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s ER doctors and nurses. So, it’s pretty safe to assume that there are many of us out here.

The Sarasota Memorial Hospital Health System needs to recognize its addiction to railroading patients to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic is harmful to patients’ health. And they need to fix the problem before they make matters worse for even more patients.

December 5, 2024: When is a broken bone not a broken bone? Ask Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Last month, I received a letter from Sarasota Memorial Hospital System’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal that stated I was stabilized and received appropriate medical treatment in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice before I was intimidated into signing away my rights and shipped off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. His words have gnawed at me since.

I was admitted to the hospital after a fall in a downtown Venice restaurant that resulted in facial fractures, including three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Peal said in his letter that the breaks were minor displacements. What exactly does that mean and why did it make me ineligible for immediate treatment?

If I arrived in the ER with three breaks in my arm, leg or neck, would they be considered minor displacements? Would the medical team treat my injuries first, then discuss their concern about alcohol use with me? If they were competent, I suspect they would.

So what was so different about broken facial bones? Is it that you can’t see them or that they cause functional problems that are hard to see? In my case, the breaks were so severe that the my mouth wasn’t anchored. The upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down.

When I finally saw a facial surgeon after five days languishing without care at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic and four weeks searching for a specialist covered by my HMO, he said I should have seen him within 48 hours. He also put a rush-order on surgery to repair the breaks. I was under for two hours while he installed titanium strips and screws to join the broken bones so they could mend. Doesn’t sound like minor displacements to me.

There are so many unanswered questions surrounding my (mis)treatment in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. It would be wonderful if the public hospital system would admit it mistreated me and other patients it railroaded to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Clinic. I expect more of a public hospital. You should, too.

December 4, 2024: Patient lawsuits are mounting against Acadia Healthcare, parent company of the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

A New Whiteland, Indiana, woman became the fifth patient to file an abuse lawsuit against Options Behavioral Health and its parent company Acadia Healthcare. According to a WRTV report, Maria Reagan filed a her lawsuit on November 19 alleging that the Acadia-owned center provided substandard care and kept her longer than medically necessary.

Reagan, who suffers from anxiety and depression, told a reporter, “I felt like I was in hell.” She says she expected to stay at the center for 72 hours, but was kept for eight days. During that time, she did not see a psychiatrist and was not allowed to go outdoors.

Reagan’s experiences are similar to mine. After Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice declined to treat three clean fractures in my face sustained in a fall, ER doctors and nurses railroaded me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. There, I received no treatment for my facial fractures–even though my mouth flexed when I bit down–and I only saw a psychiatrist briefly after I was admitted, and he never provided counseling.

Patient lawsuits against Acadia are increasing in number. Last year, Acadia paid $400 million to settle three cases in New Mexico, one of which involved alleged sexual abuse against a child.

Acadia’s stock is on an upswing this week despite the threat of shareholder lawsuits and state and federal government agencies investigations. This year, the Justice Department fined the company $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Acadia’s shareholder value as the trickle of patient lawsuits turns into a stampede.

December 3, 2024: Did Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic Kidnap Me? A thought experiment.

Driving across the Everglades leaves a lot of time for deep thought. As I was returning from Thanksgiving, my mind drifted, as it too often does, to the horrible experience I had at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

Specifically, after I fell and sustained three clean fractures in my forehead, eye socket and cheek, I woke up being wheeled into the emergency department at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. There, the brusk doctors and nurses didn’t discuss my case with me. Instead, they told me about my fractures then allowed four law officers to stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into signing away my rights so they could ship me off to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, where I languished for five days without proper treatment. When I finally saw a facial surgeon, he said my injuries were so severe I should have seen him within 48 hours, not a month later.

What does this have to do with kidnapping? Well, a few years back I sat on a jury in Palm Beach County. A group of inept criminals held up a gold store without covering their faces or hands. It was obvious by their appearance and fingerprints that they committed the crime. While they were at it, they bound the owner’s hands and took him struggling from the front of the store to a back room.

The judge in the case explained that under Florida law, kidnapping is taking an individual against their will from one location to another. They don’t have to be taken over state lines, room to room fits the definition.

In my case, the doctors and nurses used four law officers to intimidate me into signing away my rights and sending me to a place that couldn’t treat my serious injuries. This was done against my will. Like any patient, if given a choice, I would have told them that I wasn’t going anywhere and I wanted them to find a facility that could address my fractures.

Under Florida’s legal definition of kidnapping, I was clearly kidnapped. Now, I don’t expect anyone to act on this charge — though I met another military veteran who was railroaded the same way and there are probably many, many more of us — but it would be great if some agency or law firm surprised me.

November 29, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital Emergency Care Centers become accredited to provide emergency care to geriatric patients. Can they be trusted?

This week, the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System announced that its three emergency centers are the first in Southwest Florida to become accredited Geriatric Emergency Departments. The designation means that the centers are dedicating extra effort to provide older patients with quality care.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the system’s freestanding ER in North Port committed themselves to being staffed by doctors and nurses who are specially trained to treat older patients. “Having specially trained clinicians and extra resources to address the complex social and physical needs of our older patients can have a meaningful impact on their life,” said Dr. Reuben Holland, the medical director of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Emergency and Urgent Care Centers.

Dr. Holland is right, but there’s a problem. I and many older patients I know have received horrible treatment in the hospital system’s emergency departments. I had a broken face, and Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I met a retired veteran in the treatment center who went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice for chest tightness and to inquire about alcohol treatment options, and he was railroaded, too. Then there’s the other retired veteran I met who visited the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice for pleurisy, a painful inflammation of the lungs. She smartly didn’t sign the papers the doctors and nurses use to railroad people. She fled and received appropriate care at an urgimed.

Until the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System acknowledges this dangerous situation — which it hasn’t — as an older patient, I’d think twice about seeking help in its emergency rooms.

November 28, 2024: Marvelous Thanksgiving with family and friends.

What a great day with my family and friends! You see, I’m human = flesh, blood, thoughts, feelings, joy, magical experiences, and people who I love and they love me. Why the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic abused me (and many others I know) like I’m less than human and not deserving of respect, compassion, quality health care, and the truth is beyond me. We may soon find out why they did it. I can’t wait. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! See you tomorrow for the next SMHDanger update.

Sarasota County Public Hospital Board: Sharon Wetzler DePeters, Britt Riner, Sarah Lodge, Gregory Carter, James Meister. President and CEO: David Verinder. Patient Advocate: Brian Peal.

November 27, 2024: Law firms are now seeking patients who were mistreated at Acadia Healthcare facilities, including notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. It’s interesting to see who qualifies for representation. After my fall, I experienced most of the abuses named by Hilliard Law at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic.

According to Hilliard Law, “Injuries and losses that have been reported in legal action against Acadia Healthcare include:

Wrongful detainment (for longer than 5 days)

Committed under false pretenses

Emotional trauma

Neglect

Sexual abuse or assault

Physical abuse

Wrongful death in severe cases”

The law firm says, “You may be eligible to file an Acadia Healthcare lawsuit if:

You stayed at an Acadia Healthcare facility or a facility of one of its subsidiaries;

You were kept at that facility for at least 5 days; and,

You did not require to be kept that long; or,

You protested being kept at the facility but were kept against your will.”

In my case, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic committed multiple offenses.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice had four law officers stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into committing myself (under false pretenses). I had a seriously fractured face with three clean breaks at my brow, eye socket and cheek bone. It was obviously malpractice to send me to a treatment center instead of getting me the medical care I desperately needed. When I finally saw a facial surgeon a month after I was discharged by the treatment center, he said he should have seen me within 48 hours of the accident. Despite Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate saying my condition was stable and I received appropriate medical treatment, the fractures in my face were still cleanly broken when I saw the specialist.

My shocking experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice left me with emotional trauma that was amplified by my appalling experience at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. The clinic held me longer than 5 days when the doctors and nurses knew I had a face that was so severely broken that the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down. The only treatment I received was from a nurse who told me not to sleep on the fractured side of my face. I even had to ask for an Ibuprofen every time they distributed meds. That certainly counts as wrongful detainment, neglect and physical abuse.

In addition, wondering if I was going to bleed out or have a stroke due to my injuries caused severe emotional trauma that has left me with PTSD, depression and anxiety. I wanted to get out of the clinic and seek emergency care for my facial fractures, but I kept quiet because I wondered if the law officers who stood at the end of my bed would arrest me for not completing my unnecessary three day stay — that the clinic extended to an unnecessary five days-plus so it could milk my insurance company. (This fraudulent scheme was identified by the Justice Department and New York Times.)

The bottom line here is that the US Justice Department has fined Acadia Healthcare $20 million for fraudulently admitting patients, delivering subpar care, and keeping them longer than necessary. Other federal and state agencies are piling on. And law firms are building a shareholder lawsuit that accuses the company of lying to them about how it profits off patients.

It’s refreshing that law firms are now lining up to represent we, the patients, who were actually abused by Acadia Healthcare facilities. I wish there was a way to hold the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System equally accountable for its participation in this abusive scheme, but it’s protected by sovereign immunity that limit’s malpractice payouts to $250,000. Let’s hope the truth comes out in the discovery process, so the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System admits it has a problem and fixes it instead of denying the truth. This may be the only way to bring closure for those of us who were victimized.

Sarasota County Public Hospital Board: Sharon Wetzler DePeters, Britt Riner, Sarah Lodge, Gregory Carter, James Meister. President and CEO: David Verinder. Patient Advocate: Brian Peal.

November 25, 2024: Great news for patients abused by Acadia Healthcare facilities — including North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic! Attorneys are working to build class-action lawsuits against Acadia on behalf of patients who were harmed in Acadia facilities. Could hospitals — like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice — that pressured patients into being admitted to Acadia facilities — be next?

I created SMHDanger.com to warn the public that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and other hospitals were pressuring patients into admitting themselves to notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, which is owned by Acadia Healthcare. I had to do this because, despite the Justice Department and New York Times exposing the dangerous scandal, local news outlets weren’t interested in covering it and local law firms wouldn’t take the cases for reasons explained below.

Today, a friend of mine gave me hope that justice will be served. She notified me that two law firms are in the process of building patient class-action lawsuits against Acadia. The Justice Department fined Acadia $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing substandard care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. I experienced all three charges.

When I fell and fractured my face in April, doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice didn’t treat clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead, they had four law officers stand at the end of my bed to intimidate me into signing away my rights so they could ship me off to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. There, the only “treatment” I received for my face was when a nurse told me not to sleep on that side because I had serious fractures.

I hold Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic responsible for putting my life and health in jeopardy. Unfortunately, the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is public, so the most that could be recovered in a malpractice suit is $250,000 per patient. Acadia, on the other hand, is a private company with deep, deep pockets. Federal and state investigations into fraud at Acadia combined with the New York Times series exposing its wrongdoing has caused Acadia’s stock to dive from a high of $88 this year to $36.

Law firms have lined up shareholder lawsuits against Acadia. Now patients have an opportunity to seek justice. At least two law firms are inviting patients to join class action lawsuits against Acadia. Visit their websites for more information:

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein

Hilliard Law

As discussed before, it would be to patients’ and the general public’s advantage if a law firm figured out how to form a class action lawsuit or even file a single patient lawsuit against the Sarasota Memorial Health System, which has taken no responsibility for what it did to me and other patients. Contact me if you know of a law firm that would take this case.

November 22, 2024: The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice vs. an ER at a Pennsylvania hospital. There’s no comparison

A friend of mine who is dealing with a serious illness flew down to visit from South Central Pennsylvania. At lunch today, she told me that she moved from Venice to Pennsylvania in part because the healthcare is better up north. She specifically mentioned a horrible experience she had in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

Suffering from an unknown illness last spring, she visited the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. She asked her specialist at John’s Hopkins University Medical Center to speak with the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to give them a better idea of her chronic condition so they’d better know how to treat her new ailment. When the expert called, the doctors and nurses hung up on him. This gave me flashbacks of the way I was handled roughly by the ER when paramedics delivered me there with a broken face.

I bring this up because, like me, my friend wholeheartedly supports professional, kind, caring and concerned healthcare providers. Unfortunately, that’s no what I, my friend, or many others I know have received in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. My friend said when she went to the ER at a hospital in Pennsylvania, they treated her properly.

That Sarasota Memorial Hospital believes, as its patient (read hospital) advocate told, me that I received appropriate medical care in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is shocking. I’m glad that my friend now lives in a place where she receives the professional healthcare she needs in a pleasant, supportive environment.

November 21, 2024: Congratulations to the new members of the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board. Let’s hope they bring justice to those of us who Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s ER patient dumped at the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic

Two new members and two returning members of the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board were sworn in to office this week. Voters elected them November 5th.

My hope and expectation of the two new board members — Kevin Cooper, a civic and business leader, and Pam Beitlich, a career employee at Sarasota Memorial Hospital — is that they will investigate charges that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice dumped patients at the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic.

In my case, I fell and sustained three clean facial breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead of treating my dangerous injuries, the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice railroaded me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. Over a five day stay, the only “treatment” I received for my facial fractures was a nurse who told me not to sleep on the left side of my face because it was fractured.

I’m not the only one who was railroaded by Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. When I was being held at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic, I met a retired veteran who said he went to the ER for chest tightness and to discuss alcohol treatment options. The doctors and nurses said they were going to admit him. But, when his wife went home to get some belongings, they shipped him off to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. It took hours for her to find out where he was.

Another young military veteran told me she went to the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice for pleurisy — painful inflammation of the lung — and, instead of treating her condition, the doctors and nurses tried to get her to sign away her rights so they could ship her off to North Tampa Bay Behavior Health Clinic. She said no and was let out the hospital’s back door. She had to walk all away around the hospital in pain to her car. She received appropriate treatment at an urgimed.

Our stories are backed up by an extensive New York Times investigation into patient abuse at Acadia Healthcare facilities, like North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. The Times described how hospitals dumped patients at Acadia Healthcare facilities, where they were admitted even though they didn’t belong there, received substandard care, and were kept longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Acadia Healthcare has paid a $20 million fine to the Justice Department for these fraudulent practices. Federal and state investigations continue.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient (read hospita) advocate sent me a letter that stated I was stable before I was railroaded to the treatment center and I received appropriate medical care. That came as a surprise to me because my three clean breaks hadn’t been treated by anyone and the top left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down. My facial surgeon said I should have seen him within 48 hours, not the weeks it took to find help. My fractures were still cleanly broken when I saw him.

The Sarasota County Public Hospital Board is responsible for setting the chain’s strategic direction. I hope they steer the system in the direction of being more patient friendly, professional and responsible to the public. The care I needed but didn’t receive at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice has left me with PTSD and a strong distrust of the medical system and law officers. That the system is compounding it by gaslighting me — trying to convince me what happened didn’t happen — is highly offensive. Let’s get this fixed so we can all move on.

November 20, 2024: ChatGPT says by sending me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic instead of treating my facial fractures, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice committed the most common forms of emergency room medical malpractice

ChatGPT is an amazing health resource. Today, I asked the Artificial Intelligence program: What are the most common types of emergency room malpractice? To no one’s surprise, it listed several examples that I actually experienced in the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice when, instead of treating my dangerous facial fractures, they shipped me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

ChatGPT listed the following examples of ER malpractice:

Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis: The doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice diagnosed me as having facial fractures, including three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead of treating them, they railroaded me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, where I languished without treatment for five days. When I finally saw a facial surgeon five weeks later, he said he should have seen me within 48 hours, and he was appalled by the way I’d been abused. He added that he didn’t seek privileges at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice because of questionable treatment decisions. (Yup).
Medication Errors: Despite painful facial fractures and bruised ribs, the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice didn’t give me so much as a Tylenol for my pain. (Would they do the same for their friends and relatives?)
Improper Treatment or Inadequate Monitoring: As mentioned before, the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice risked my life and health by sending me to a treatment facility when I actually needed immediate care for my fractured face. The only treatment and monitoring of my facial fractures I received at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic was a nurse who told me “Don’t sleep on the left side of your face. You have fractures.” (At least it’s something, I guess.)
Failure to Follow Up or Refer: The ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice did nothing to make sure that I’d see a facial surgeon in a timely manner. I and my general practitioner had to find one, which lengthened the time before I actually saw a specialist.
Failure to Recognize Red Flags: The fact that my facial fractures were so bad that the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down was a pretty obvious red flag. Railroading me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic was the wrong solution.
Poor Communication: The doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice never asked me what I wanted. When I knew my face was fractured, I wanted immediate treatment. Instead, they said they were sending me to another facility for treatment. I assumed it was another hospital that could treat my fractures. Having four law officers stand at attention at the end of my bed to intimidate me into signing papers so they could send me to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Center was a massive abuse of power.
Patient Discharge Errors: Obviously, you don’t send a 61-year-old man with a head injury and serious facial fractures to a treatment center. It’s still shocking to me that Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate (actually hospital advocate) Brian Peal insisted in a letter that my condition was “stable” and I received “appropriate medical treatment”. Think about that before you go to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

ChatGPT finished its answer by stating: “These types of errors can be dangerous and even life-threatening, which is why thorough attending to detail, communication, and timely action are crucial in emergency care.” Having met many patients who were mistreated in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, maybe the doctors and nurses should recite ChatGPT’s opinion before every shift.

November 19, 2024: Acadia Healthcare (parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic) stock continues to tank due in part to a federal fine and ongoing federal and state investigations into healthcare fraud

Acadia Healthcare (parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic) continues to watch its stock value plummet in part due to to a $20 million fine levied against the company for healthcare fraud and ongoing federal and state investigations.

Acadia Healthcare’s stock, which hit a high of $87.77 a share in March is now valued at $37.13. The company saw its shareholder value plunge begin in September when the New York Times published a series of articles that revealed how Acadia Healthcare profited by admitting patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, providing them with subpar care, and keeping them longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. About the same time, the US Department of Justice announced that Acadia Healthcare paid a $20 million fine for these practices.

Other factors weighing on Acadia Healthcare is the potential for a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, a shareholder lawsuit that’s due to be filed next month, and an announcement that the Veterans Affairs Department is now investigation the company.

On top of that, Acadia Healthcare profits off federal insurance programs, like Obamacare, that could be cut by the Trump administration.

It’s great to see that our justice system and shareholders are holding Acadia Healthcare responsible for mistreating patients. Now if only there was a way to hold the hospitals — like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice — that improperly railroaded patients to Acadia Healthcare facilities — like North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic — responsible for their malfeasance. Unfortunately, the Sarasota Memorial Hospital system is a public hospital system so malpractice payouts are capped at $250,000 so no law firm will sue them. They also don’t have shareholders to hold them accountable.

November 18, 2024: Congratulations Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice on receiving an ‘A’ safety grade. I wish I received that level of care from your ER

The Sarasota Memorial Hospital System — including Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice — has received ‘A’ safety grades from The Leapfrog Group. Leapfrog relies on surveys completed by 3,000 hospitals nationwide and data collected from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Leapfrog rated Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice above average in 18 categories, average in none, and below average in Clostridium difficile infections, surgical wounds splitting open, falls causing broken hips, and collapsed lungs.

My treatment in Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s ER earned the hospital an F. Doctors and nurses didn’t clearly discuss my three clean-break facial injuries with me. They used four law officers intimidate me into acting against my own health interests and signing Marchman Act papers that allowed them to ship me off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, where I languished untreated for five days.

I wish I could say I was the only one who experienced Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s rough treatment. People with horror stories come out of the woodwork whenever I share my tale — which is often.

There’s the retired veteran I met in the treatment clinic who went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice for chest tightness and to discuss alcohol treatment options. The ER said they’d admit him. When his wife left to get his belongings from home, they railroaded him to the treatment clinic. It took hours for staff to tell her where he was.

There’s the retired veteran who told me when she visited the ER for pleurisy — painful inflammation of tissue that lines the lungs, doctors and nurses tried to get her to sign the papers, even though she had only one drink. When she refused, they let her out the back door of the hospital without treatment. She had to walk all the way around — in agony — to find her car. She received the care she needed at an urgimed.

Then there’s the guy who’s back was a ten on the pain scale. Unable to score a bed, he lay down on the floor for relief. A nurse said patients can’t lie on the floor. (Duh.) And the guy who lay on a gurney for hours in the hallway before he received medical care. And the woman who knew she had appendicitis but the ER experts kept insisting it was indigestion. The list goes on and on.

Instead of admitting they have a problem, the hospital’s patient advocate (read: hospital advocate) sent me a letter that said the ER doctors and nurses stabilized my condition and I received appropriate medical care. That came as a big surprise to me and my facial surgeon. He said he should have seen me within 48 hours of my accident. He had to use titanium strips and screws to rejoin the cleanly broken bones in my eye socket and cheek. He didn’t touch the break in my forehead because he said it was too risky. The surgery stopped the upper quadrant of my mouth from flexing when I bit down. “Stable”? “Appropriate”? Wow!

So, yes, congratulations on your ‘A’ grades Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. I hope you admit your ER has a dangerous secret so your whole hospital can better serve the public.

November 15, 2024: Add Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice to the list of things to consider before you visit Historic Downtown Venice, Florida

Before visiting a new downtown, people often consider safety first. Downtown Venice, Florida, is actually a very safe place to visit. I enjoy going out and celebrating with my friends a couple of times a week in the district’s superb restaurants.

There is, however, one safety factor you should consider before visiting Downtown Venice and that’s what might happen if you should be alone and have an accident.

When I tripped and fell on a chair at a downtown restaurant, I shattered my face. Unfortunately, the friends I’d been enjoying the evening with — a centenarian and her 75-year-old daughter — had left minutes before, leaving me with no one to help guide my care.

This wasn’t a problem until I arrived alone at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. There, the ER doctors and nurses didn’t take care of the three clean fractures in my brow, eye socket and cheek. Instead, they shipped me off to notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

The doctors and nurses had access to a list of relatives and friends who could have helped me in an emergency, but they didn’t use it. They also wouldn’t give me a phone, so I could seek the support and advice of my relatives and friends.

When I tell this story to my Downtown Venice friends, one of their first responses is: “That could happen to me.”

Yes, actually, it could. The risk is definitely something to consider before you venture downtown, especially if you’re alone.

November 14, 2024: How can Sarasota Memorial Hospital be rated the fifth best hospital in Florida, as rated by US News & World Reports, if patients give it only three out of five stars for overall performance?

US News & World Reports recently rated the top hospital in America. In Florida, the publication ranked Sarasota Memorial Hospital #5 among the state’s hospitals. The top hospital, Mayo Clinic-Florida in Jacksonville, received the top spot for excellence in treating patients for a wide range of medical conditions. In addition, patients awarded the hospital a perfect score of five stars for overall satisfaction with the hospital.

Surprisingly, US News & World Reports doesn’t consider patient satisfaction in its hospital ranking system. You’d think that patient opinions regarding their experience at a hospital would be given some weight.

The next four hospitals after Mayo Clinic-Florida — #2 Tampa General Hospital, #3 UF Health Shands Hospital, #4 AdventHealth Orlando, and #5 Sarasota Memorial Hospital — all received three out of five stars (60% and F) for overall patient satisfaction with the hospital. Frequent visitors to SMHDanger might be surprised to know that I actually gave Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota five stars for overall experience.

After the horror I experienced in the ER department at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice the night of my accident, I was concerned that the healthcare providers at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota would abuse me the same way. I was, to say the least, relieved when they didn’t. When I was admitted for surgery five weeks after my accident to repair my broken face, the doctors, nurses and administrators at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Sarasota treated me with care, compassion and respect. They were friendly and professional and seemed concerned about my welfare.

All the same, with what I’ve learned about public versus private hospital since my surgery, I’m still leery of public hospitals. The fact that if they commit malpractice, as Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice did when it chose to ship me to notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic for five days instead of treating the dangerous three clean breaks in my face, a lawyer won’t take the case because the potential payout is capped at $250,000.

When I have a choice, I’d rather go to a private hospital, where the care is typically better and healthcare providers can be held accountable when they make a grave error.

One final note: the US News & World Reports analysis of Sarasota Memorial Hospital found that the public hospital has a “charity care provision for uninsured patients” that’s in the lower third of hospitals. One of the points of a public hospital is to serve those who might not have enough cash or insurance to cover the cost of their care. This is certainly an area that needs work.

November 13, 2024: I asked ChatGPT what the role of a patient advocate is. Hint: It’s not what Sarasota Memorial Hospital is providing.

I’m new to ChatGPT and fascinated by the ability of an Artificial Intelligence robot to quickly and accurately deliver the facts on any subject when humans can’t necessarily. I asked ChatGPT “What does a patient advocate do?” and received an answer that was both accurate and troubling. Why? Because the patient advocate at Sarasota Memorial Hospital is not fulfilling his basic duties — which is probably as intended by the Sarasota Public Hospital Board of Directors and administrators who are supporting him.

According to ChatGPT: “A patient advocate acts as a liaison between the patient and the healthcare system, helping to ensure that patients receive the care and respect they deserve while guiding them through the often-complex healthcare process.”

According to the patient advocate at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, the dangerous, clean fractures in my forehead, eye socket and cheek were “minor displacements” of the bones, I was “stabilized” before I was shipped off to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Clinic, and I received “appropriate” medical care at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

I suspect the patient advocate at Sarasota Memorial Hospital is paid to soothe (read “gaslight”) abused patients into submission, not deal with the mistreatment they suffered. I have no advocates in the hospital system. Neither do you. That’s shameful for a supposedly transparent and accountable public hospital system.

The problem for me AND Sarasota Memorial Hospital AND North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Clinic is none of what the patient advocate told me is true. The truth is my facial fractures were so severe the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I ate. I received no treatment for the fractures at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice or North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Clinic where the doctors and nurses sent me, which put my life and health in danger. I lived in terror that I was going to bleed out or suffer a stroke without the necessary treatment to save me.

Furthermore, I was treated with callous disregard for my humanity. No one in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice or North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic had my back, instead, they treated me without listening to what I had to say or what I wanted — which was to get my serious injuries treated. I felt like a commodity to be bought and sold, like a bag of cement, which is actually what I was in their eyes.

The lack of compassion was a complete shocker. I kept wanting to believe that they’d show a shred of compassion, but it was nowhere to be found. I finally received the compassion and care I needed when I saw a facial surgeon five weeks later. He said he should have seen me within 48 hours of my fall and he was appalled by the way I’d been treated.

I did my time in silent fear for five days at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic and was released from my personal hell. Weeks later, the facial surgeon spent 2 hours installing the titanium strips needed to start the healing process for my still cleanly broken bones.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate wasn’t sorry for the way I was treated. He said he was sorry that I believed I wasn’t treated well by Sarasota Memorial Hospital or the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. Would you be satisfied with the way I was treated if it was you, a relative or a friend? Hell, I’d hope a complete stranger would be treated better.

That an AI robot knows how humans should be treated better than highly rated Sarasota Memorial Hospital System and its supposed patient advocate should spur us all into action. As I’ve written, I’m not the only one who has been manhandled by the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. Are you next? Maybe.

November 12, 2024: The missing piece of the Sarasota Memorial Hospital/North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic patient abuse scandal

There are many ways to hold public and private institutions for accountable for mistreating their customers. In the case of Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic’s abuse of patients, a few of the accountability bases are covered, but there’s one huge piece missing.

Over the past two-and-a-half months, The New York Times published an excellent series of articles (links on our media page) that describes in detail how Acadia Healthcare (parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic) pressured ER doctors and nurses into sending patients to its 50-plus treatment centers, even when it wasn’t appropriate. This served to notify the public and shareholders about this dangerous practice.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which was already investigating fraud claims against Acadia Healthcare, hit the company with a $20 million fine. The government said it was Acadia Healthcare policy to admit patients who didn’t belong in its facilities, provide sub-par care, and keep patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers. Suffering from a dangerously broken face and no chance of treatment, I experienced all three conditions at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. The federal investigations are also serving to hold healthcare providers accountable for this scandal.

The latest group bucking to hold Acadia Healthcare responsible for patient abuse is shareholders. Several law firms are recruiting investors who bought Acadia stock to sue the company for lying to them about how the company was earning a huge profit. Their take is that Acadia didn’t inform shareholders that they were improperly admitting patients, treating them poorly, and holding them in their facilities longer than necessary. When shareholders found out what was really going on, the stock value plummeted, leaving many with huge losses.

Now, for the missing piece. As we’ve noted, The New York Times and U.S. Department of Justice have held Acadia Healthcare responsible for its patient abuse. (Other federal and state agencies are now conducting their own investigations.) Law firms are lining up shareholders to sue for compensation for the losses they suffered. The enormous missing piece in the accountability puzzle is who is going to make sure we, the abused patients, are fairly compensated for our pain and suffering?

We, the patients, are the ones who were stripped of our rights and railroaded by local hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, without receiving proper care for our injuries. When we arrived at an Acadia Healthcare facility – in my case North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic – we were the ones who were admitted without cause, received subpar treatment, and were kept longer than medically necessary so the company could bilk insurers.

Surely, a law firm out there can see how easy it would be to file class action lawsuits against both the hospitals that endangered life and health by improperly referring patients to Acadia Healthcare facilities and Acadia itself. The New York Times and federal government already did the legwork.

This isn’t just a question of fair financial compensation, it’s also a question of forcing hospitals and Acadia to admit they mistreated patients and making them fix the problem so no more patients are victimized. In my case, Sarasota Memorial Hospital sent me a letter that said the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice provided appropriate medical care and stabilized my fractured face before the doctors and nurses shipped me off to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. This is a lie – and a very disappointing one from a public health system that prides itself on transparency and accountability.

The fact is my face had clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and cheek. The damage was so dangerous the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I ate. When I finally saw a facial surgeon weeks later, the breaks hadn’t healed. In two hours of surgery, he joined the bones with titanium strips.

Comprehensive accountability is the only way to ensure more patients don’t experience the abuse I and many others have endured. I welcome all law firm inquiries.

November 10, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s casual approach to referring patients to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic is a threat to patients’ mental health

Doctors and nurses in the ER department at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice have a reputation for railroading patients who even mention alcohol use to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. Instead of treating my severe facial fractures, they coerced me into admitting myself to the clinic after I fell in a downtown Venice, Florida, restaurant.

In the clinic, I met a retired veteran who suffered a similar fate. And within a week of discharge from the clinic, I met another retired veteran who refused to sign the papers that would have allowed the hospital to send her to the clinic. She escaped on foot and went to an urgemed center that treated her painful pleurisy.

If I, alone, know two other people who Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice gave the bum’s-rush to North Tampa Bay Treatment Clinic, it’s safe to say there are many more victims out there.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s preference for shipping patients off to North Tampa Bay Treatment Clinic instead of treating their primary health issue is not only a threat to our physical health, it’s also a threat to our mental health.

According to an article in Psychiatrist.com, patients have better outcomes when they’re allowed to participate in the commitment decision-making process. The doctors and nurses in Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice’s ER department didn’t discuss my options with me. Knowing that I had cleanly broken bones in my forehead, eye socket and cheek, I certainly would have asked them to treat these dangerous conditions before admission to a treatment center was even considered.

The Psychiatrist.com article says researchers “found that patients value freedom of choice and the feeling of being safe in the hospital, as well as nonpaternalistic and respectful behavior from the staff. Therefore, it is imperative for the staff to be familiar with the values of patients with illnesses resulting in frequent rehospitalizations so that they can be incorporated into treatment. This incorporation of values may promote better engagement of patients with the treatment plan and prevent repeat hospitalizations.”

In my case, I was not given an opportunity to discuss my options. The nurse leading my care waltzed into my room and said, “We can’t handle your case here.” I was pretty sure that meant they were going to send me to a hospital that could treat dangerous facial fractures. Instead, four law officers walked in and stood at stern attention at the end of my bed. The over-the-top intimidation had a clear message, sign away your rights and go to the treatment center or we’re going to arrest you. It’s a horrible thought that the hospital used the law officers to actually put my health in greater risk.

The Psychiatrist.com article condemns this approach. The article says, “patients should not be manipulated or coerced into treatment if they are capable of making autonomous decisions about their care.” I was. “These measures violate the patient’s freedom of choice and are against the individual’s liberty and autonomy and can be deemed as a humiliating and even traumatic experience.”

It was both.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital sent me a letter last week that said I received “medically appropriate” care. I strongly disagree with this. My clean facial fractures hadn’t healed themselves when I saw a facial surgeon five weeks after my initial injury. It took two hours of facial surgery with titanium strips and screws to fix the problem.

Beyond the medical issues, there are certainly mental health issues that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice needs to consider before cavalierly railroading patients to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Center. As a result of their rough handling, I, myself, am experiencing anxiety, PTSD, brain fog and distrust of medical professionals and first responders.

Like all addicts — in this case addiction to power over patients — the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has to stop denying this problem exists and voluntarily agree to undergo treatment for it.

November 8, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital told me in a letter that their ER department stabilized my broken face so they could ship me off to the North Tampa Bay Treatment Clinic, but did they?

In my written dialogue this week with Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate, Brian Peal, he told me that he and the hospital decided that my broken face was stabilized to the point that I could be safely sent to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Clinic. He also said that the care I received was “medically appropriate”.

But was it?

My facial specialist said he was appalled by the non-treatment I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. He added that instead of languishing for five days for no apparent reason in North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I should have seen him within 48 hours of my fall.

From Day One, I didn’t think that the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice had stabilized my face. I had clean breaks in my brow, eye socket, and inner cheek. The breaks were so serious that the bone in the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down. How in the world could that be considered stable?

For a third opinion on Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s non-treatment of my facial fractures, I turned to a trusted source: ClevelandClinic.org. The prestigious experts there said proper treatment of facial fractures include pain relievers, corticosteroids (to reduce swelling) and antibiotics if necessary. I didn’t receive any of them at the hospital.

Cleveland Clinic also says proper treatment of facial fractures involves “Reduction: resetting the broken bones and placing them in their correct positions” and “Fixation: keeping the bones in their new positions long enough for healing to take place.” This is often achieved using surgical plates, screws and wires.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice offered me none of this critical care. When I saw my facial surgeon five weeks after my accident, to my horror, what Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice doctors and nurses still think were “mildly displaced” bones in my forehead, eye socket and cheek were still cleanly broken and the upper quadrant of my mouth still flexed when I ate. The facial surgeon had to spend two hours in surgery installing titanium strips in my eye socket and cheek to encourage healing. He said it was too risky to operate on my forehead fracture.

The risk to my life and health cannot be understated. According to the Cleveland Clinic, facial trauma can “result in infections, internal bleeding and neurological issues”. Cleveland Clinic specifically mentions cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak. My facial surgeon mentioned that the sinus drain in my forehead was close to the fracture, and it could have led to serious complications if the sinus drain hole were blocked.

The bottom line recommendation from Cleveland Clinic is that to reduce the risk of complications of facial fractures, “you should see a healthcare provider immediately following facial trauma”. I was calm and cooperative in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. If they were worried that I was admitted inebriated, they should have given me what they believed was a proper amount of time to dry out then cared for my serious injuries, not shipped me off to a fraudulent treatment center that could do nothing for me.

I’m not the only one railroaded by Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Until the hospital admits its error and fixes the problem, we’re all at risk.

November 7, 2024: “Patient dumping” is a serious threat at Sarasota Memorial Hospital

In 1986, the federal government passed a law that banned public and private hospitals from patient dumping. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act was approved in response to the dangerous practice of hospitals refusing to care for patients based on their ability to pay. The patients would essentially be dumped on another hospital. In the worst case scenario, the patients would be driven around so much in search of a hospital that would treat them that they didn’t survive the shuffling.

Under the anti-patient-dumping law, hospitals that accept federal money through Medicare must meet three criteria before moving a patient to another facility:

Screen the patient for health problems;
Provide medical treatment that stabilizes the patient’s condition; and
Transfer the patient only when they can’t perform the requirements of 1 and 2.

In my case, ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice met the screening requirement, but they failed to meet the stabilizing requirement before transferring me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I arrived at the hospital with many facial fractures, including clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket, and inside my cheek. The breaks were so severe that the bone that holds the teeth in the upper left quadrant of my mouth flexed when I bit down. That’s a sure sign that due to the breaks, my face was not properly anchored.

Instead of treating the breaks, and even though I was fully aware, cooperative and eager for care, an ER nurse announced that the hospital couldn’t handle my case. My initial thought was they must be sending me to another hospital that can treat my serious injuries. Instead, they shipped me off for three days of detox that soon turned into five. During that time, I was in terror that I might hemorrhage out, suffer a stroke, or further damage the breaks in my face. The only treatment advice I received was from a nurse at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic who told me, “Don’t sleep on the left side of your face. You have fractures”.

When I finally saw a facial surgeon weeks later, he told me he should have seen me within 48 hours of my accident. He was appalled by the way I was treated by the ER department at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, as were many other medical professionals I’ve spoken with.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate said in letter this week that my bone breaks were “mildly displaced” and the treatment I received was “appropriate and in-line with medical standards” — to which I responded No and No. The fact is they dumped a 61-year-old man with serious facial fractures in a treatment center that couldn’t help him.

I contacted the Department of Health and Human Services, which enforces the anti-patient dumping laws, to investigate my experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Treatment Center. The investigation started in July, and it appears to be going much longer than expected.

My hope is that the department will sanction Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic for patient dumping, so no additional patients have to go through what they put me through.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital is a public system. I expect more transparency, accountability, and action than I’ve seen so far. The denial of the seriousness of my injuries and the poor care I received by Sarasota Memorial Hospital administration is, in itself, a threat to the public.

November 6, 2024: What will two new Republican members mean for the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board of Directors and the public health system’s future?

The votes are in from yesterday’s election. Two new Republicans won seats on the Sarasota Public Hospital Board of Directors held by Democrats and two Republican members won another term. The central issues confronting the board are growth, serving patient and community needs, and, of course, whether or not to continue as a public hospital system or go private.

There are positives and negatives for the new board to consider when deciding whether or not Sarasota Memorial Hospital should remain public. The common conception is that a public hospital system is the way to go because the system reinvests excess funds back into the hospital system, not to pay off shareholders. This, in theory, allows it to serve a larger population of patients, including those who don’t have good insurance or other means to pay their full bill.

It’s also thought that since a public hospital has sovereign immunity, which protects it from the expense of malpractice lawsuits and payouts, it will have even greater resources to service the public. We’ll revisit this later in this column.

If Sarasota Memorial Hospital was privatized, the hospital system would likely focus its attention on providing top-notch care to patients who have good insurance or other means to pay their bills (aka The Wealthy). As a result, a smaller population will receive care.

I used to believe that public hospitals were a better deal for the public than private hospitals. But, after my experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, I’m not so sure. After a fall, I was admitted to the hospital with multiple facial fractures, including clean fractures in my forehead, eye socket, and inner cheek. (A facial surgeon who said I should have been seen within 48 hours of my accident had to implant titanium strips to encourage my broken bones to fuse together.)

Instead of treating my serious injuries, ER doctors decided to send me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. There I languished for five days experiencing the conditions that led the Justice Department to fine the clinic’s parent company $20 million. I was admitted when I didn’t need treatment, I received subpar care, and I was kept longer than necessary to bilk my insurance company.

The one benefit I received at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic that I didn’t receive at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice is a nurse who actually delivered care for my serious facial fractures. She said, “Don’t sleep on the left side of your face. You have fractures.” Pretty impressive!

When I got out of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I tried to find ways to warn the public that Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice might endanger their lives and health the same way it did mine. I actually met two other people from Venice who had the same experience. Seems like a pattern to me.

I contacted two powerhouse law firms, and they both turned me down, not because I didn’t have a case, but because of our friend sovereign immunity. Under sovereign immunity, Sarasota Memorial Hospital can only be sued for $250,000, which isn’t enough to cover legal bills, let alone the pain and suffering I experienced at their Venice facility.

In the end, for me, a public hospital was a raw deal. I didn’t get the care I needed and there’s nothing I can do about it from a legal perspective. I hope the new board considers these points when they’re pondering whether or not to remain public.

In the meantime, I will continue to work to warn the public about this dangerous situation.

November 5, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital invites me to meet with its team to discuss my experience at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic

Here’s my response to Brian Peal, Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Patient Advocate:

Dear Brian:

What would we discuss? You already told me in your letter that:

1. My facial fractures, that required a two hour operation to repair with titanium strips, were “mildly displaced”.

2. Your doctors and nurses stabilized my condition before railroading me to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic — even though the breaks were so severe the bone that holds my upper left row of teeth flexed when I ate.

3. Your nursing staff “conducted regular assessments to monitor and manage my pain and comfort levels”. I was in extreme pain and they did nothing.

5. “All of the actions taken were appropriate and in line with medical standards.” That’s a chilling summary that leaves no room for productive conversation.

What do you think?

Larry

November 5, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Hospital thinks sending a 61-year-old man with a head injury and multiple clean facial fractures to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic Is “appropriate and in line with medical standards“

I received a response to my email to Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate Brian Peal and the hospital board of directors asking them to investigate how I was mistreated at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

In a lengthy letter, Peal repeated the facts of the case: That I was in a local establishment, celebrating with friends (a 100-year-old woman and her 75-year-old daughter) and fell shortly after they left. The letter said that I had an elevated alcohol level that led first responders to place me in protective custody. This was actually a good idea since I was knocked out when my face hit the floor and clearly was incapable of driving. However, protective custody after I arrived at the hospital was totally unnecessary. All I wanted there was for someone, anyone, to fix my broken face. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

When I came to when I was being wheeled into an emergency room suite, Peal said I received a CT scan of my head that revealed that I had “mildly displaced facial fractures.” I didn’t know there was such a thing. My fractures were actually so serious that the bone that holds the teeth in the upper left of my mouth flexed when I bit down. That doesn’t sound like a mild or, as Peal says later in the letter, stable situation for anyone.

When I finally was able to see a facial surgeon after five days spent languishing in terror at North Tampa Bay Treatment Clinic, he told me the clean fractures in my forehead, eye socket and inner cheek were so serious he should have seen me within 48 hours of the fall. He was so concerned, he expedited my facial surgery and then installed titanium strips to bring the cleanly broken (not mildly displaced) bones in my eye socket and inside my cheek together so they could heal. He said he couldn’t operate on my forehead because it was too risky. Now that’s compassionate, competent care.

To say that level of destruction to my face constitutes “mildly displaced facial fractures” is ridiculous. If I had a broken arm, broken leg or broken back, I’m sure they would have treated my condition or found someone who could. Did they not treat me because my fractures were hard to see? All around my left eye was intense purple from bruising and hemorrhaging. Even a nurse in the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic was smart enough to issue the only treatment I received for my broken face. She said, “Don’t sleep on the left side of your face. It’s fractured.” That would be funny if it wasn’t true. I feel lucky that I didn’t bleed out or have a stroke there when I should have been receiving medical care for my serious injuries.

Brian Peal goes on to write that “our nursing staff conducted regular assessments to monitor and manage your pain and comfort levels.” They must have performed these functions using an invisible ray because I wasn’t offered water, food or so much as an aspirin for my head injury, fractures or painfully bruised ribs. My body was racked with pain when I was moved from the hospital bed to a gurney.

The last paragraph of Peal’s letter begins with a sentence that “We are sorry that our team and the behavioral health facility in Tampa did not fully meet your expectations.” That’s an understatement. Taking a 61-year-old man with head injuries and clean facial fractures and sending him to a treatment center, instead of dealing with his life-threatening injuries, shouldn’t meet anyone’s expectations–even the board and administration at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice should also be sanctioned for sending me to a treatment center that’s well known for fraudulent behavior. The U.S. Department of Justice fined Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing subpar care, and keeping patients longer than they should to bilk insurance companies. The Tampa newspaper wrote about these deficiencies way at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic wayyyyy back in 2019. Federal investigators are piling on. I experienced it firsthand during my stay.

Toward the end of the paragraph, Peale states: “All of the actions taken were appropriate and in line with medical standards.” This line should scare the hell out of anyone who is voluntarily or involuntarily admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice. I know other people who received similar treatment to what I experienced at Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice. Will you be next?

None of us will be safe until Sarasota Memorial Hospital recognizes the dangerous situation, informs the public, and fixes the problems. Peal’s letter indicates a sincere willingness to do none of this. I’ll continue to do my best to warn the public.

Writer’s Note: Keep in mind that Sarasota Memorial Hospital is part of a public hospital system. If doctors and nurses commit malpractice, the hospital can only be sued for $250,000, so attorneys are reluctant to take the case. Private hospitals do not have this type of cap in place.

Sarasota Public Hospital Board: Sarah Lodge: Chair of the board Vicki Lynn Nighswander: Central District Seat 1 Alan Jerome Sprintz: At-Large Seat 1 Dr. George Davis: At-Large Seat 3 Dr. Dale P. Anderson: At-Large Seat 2, replacing John A. Lutz Tramm Hudson: At-Large Seat 2, term ends in 2024 Victor Rohe: Northern District Seat 2, term ends in 2026 Richard Rehmeyer, MD: Member

November 4, 2024: What’s it like to stay in a real, effective behavioral treatment center? I don’t know. Sarasota Memorial Hospital erroneously and egregiously sent me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic

Many people who have never been to a behavioral treatment center wonder what it’s like inside a mental health or addiction facility. After I fell and broke my face cleanly in three places, instead of treating my dangerous injuries, Sarasota Memorial Hospital sent me two hours up I-75 to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

What I experienced at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic was anything but normal. The doctors and nurses there knew I had clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket, inner cheek — injuries they couldn’t treat — but they admitted me anyway. The only advice I was given was “don’t sleep on the left side of your face, you have fractures.” I already knew that from an MRI I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. It was also obvious to me because the bone that holds the row of upper teeth on the left side of my face flexed when I ate.

The routine for the five days I was in the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic consisted of lining up for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the distribution of medications. Considering I had a broken face and painfully bruised ribs, it shocked me that I had to ask for an Ibuprofen every time they handed out meds. It’s like despite my purple black eye, they wouldn’t acknowledge my injuries. Were they motivated by profit? Who knows?

This belief was compounded when the head psychiatrist asked me if I knew what I was doing in the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. I told him the truth: I tripped on a chair, broke my face, and was sent there by Sarasota Memorial Hospital. I guess he didn’t like my answer. I never saw him again.

The same thing happed when I met with their mental health care committee. They asked me if I knew why I was there, I said I tripped on a chair, broke my face and was sent there by Sarasota Memorial Hospital. One of the experts asked me to hold my hand straight out. I did this, she said to the others, “See his hand is shaking. That’s a sure sign of an addiction problem.” #1: I didn’t notice my hand was shaking. #2: If it was it was because I had a broken face and painfully bruised ribs. They made me sign a plan for my care that they didn’t explain, and I never saw them again.

Another part of the regular routine was having vitals — blood pressure, heart rate and temperature — taken every four hours. I suspect this was billable so the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic nurses did it even all through the night, which meant a good night’s sleep was impossible.

The hospital had some group therapy sessions, but I missed the first few because I couldn’t sit for long periods and talking made my bruised ribs burn. The few that I did attend featured what seemed to be a college student discussing topics like anger management and conflict resolution. I honestly don’t remember much because they weren’t beneficial to me. Getting care for my face would have been.

The rest of my time in the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic was spent watching bad TV and hearing other patients talk about their great adventures with alcohol and illicit drugs. Some of the stories were kind of funny, but they also made me sad because it was obvious that the care they were receiving was going to do nothing to help them along in their recovery.

When I was at the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I met another patient who was railroaded there by Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The retired veteran told me he didn’t know why he was there, and he, in a few short days, was already out $6,000 dollars because his insurance wouldn’t cover his stay.

Once I heard that I wasn’t the only one railroaded by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital, I sensed a scam. Reading a 2019 article in the Tampa newspaper about North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic confirmed my suspicions. A series published in September by the New York Times nailed it home. The Justice Department fined Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, $20 million for admitting patients who didn’t need behavioral health treatment, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurance companies. That was my experience to the letter.

I’m sure there are good mental health treatment centers out there, but, from my experience, North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic isn’t one of them. Why Sarasota Memorial Hospital risked my health and life by sending me there remains a mystery. Was there a kickback paid to the hospital? I don’t know.

I look forward to the day when I find out the truth. Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s patient advocate said the hospital is investigating my experience. Their report should prove very enlightening and serve as a warning to other patients.

November 3, 2024: Why Aren’t Local Newspapers And Most Broadcasters NOT Covering The Fact That Sarasota Memorial Hospital Endangered Patients Lives By Sending Them To North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic?

For a couple of months, I have sent emails to editors at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, and Venice Gondolier imploring them to report on the fact that Sarasota Memorial Hospital put patients’ health and lives at risk by sending them to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. All I’ve received in response is crickets.

It’s very disturbing that editors at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, and Venice Gondolier are failing to warn the public about this major scandal, especially since we are all at-risk of this dangerous abuse. The ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital railroaded me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic with three clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and inner cheek. The only care I received for the injuries there was not to sleep on the left side of my face. I even had to request Ibuprofen for the pain every time they issued meds. I know other patients who received similar non-care.

The lack of media coverage is especially surprising in the case of the Tampa Bay Times, which ran an excellent article about malpractice and fraud at Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic in 2019. Five years ago, reporters examined how the clinic admitted patients who didn’t belong there, provided sub-par treatment, and kept patients longer than they should have to bilk insurers. As I found out firsthand, they’re still doing it.

The New York Times ran an excellent series of articles about Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. Unfortunately, the articles are behind a paywall, so most of the public remains unaware of the danger posed by Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

My question to the publishers and editors of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, and Venice Gondolier is why aren’t you covering this important story? We all know Sarasota Memorial Hospital is a major employer with a huge advertising budget. Are you putting profits ahead of patient health? It’s certainly something to consider.

November 1, 2024: Sarasota Memorial Public Hospital Board Election 2024

Next Tuesday, voters are going to the polls to pick representatives to sit on the Sarasota Memorial Public Hospital Board. Board members serve on a voluntary basis. Their job is to make sure that the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System serves the public good.

This year, much of the talk surrounding the Sarasota Memorial Public Hospital Board election has focused on defending the system from privatization. According to the board’s webpage, the value of a public hospital versus a private hospital is that a public hospital invests profits back into the system, which allows it to provide top-notch health care to patients almost regardless of their financial ability to pay. This is certainly commendable, but there’s a downside that needs to be discussed, too.

Because the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System has been granted sovereign immunity (basically it’s considered a government entity), it’s very difficult or nearly impossible to sue the hospital when it makes a medical mistake. The law caps malpractice payouts at $250,000, which isn’t enough for an attorney to put in the many hours required to win a case.

With sovereign immunity, the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System is spared from expensive malpractice lawsuits and payouts that private hospitals are subjected to. That’s great for the hospital, but what if a patient is injured due to negligence?

This might not seem like an important issue, but it certainly becomes one when a patient is the victim of medical negligence. I believe my experience of having a face with clean breaks at the forehead, eye socket and inside my cheek is a good example. Instead of stabilizing my face, ER doctors and nurses shipped me off to a behavioral treatment center, even though I was being cooperative and didn’t need treatment. Would they have done the same thing if I was suffering from a broken arm, broken leg, or broken back. I think when it comes to fractures, they should all be treated with extreme diligence and care.

I mailed in my ballot and voted for candidates who are fighting privatization. Now that I’m seeing how hard it is to get journalists and lawyers to help me expose Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s dangerous secret, I don’t think I’d do it again.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital is abusing not only patients, but the right to sovereign immunity.

October 30, 2024: What Would A Crisis Consultant Tell Sarasota Memorial Hospital And North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic To Do Now That Their Patient Abuse Scandal Is Being Exposed?

Great question! I just happen to be a crisis consultant who worked with Walmart, Sam’s Club, American Airlines, Southern California Gas and other clients near and far.

If I were advising you, I would tell you quite simply to admit that you abused patients. You were caught. The facts confirm your malfeasance. Now deal with it head on to mitigate the damage. Maybe you let a few heads roll to show you’re serious about protecting patients.

Ultimately, you have to do this because I’m not the only one who was admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice with a serious injury that wasn’t addressed at the hospital who found themselves railroaded to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. If you prefer, you can use the standard legalese where you say you didn’t know about the abuse and it’s not your policy (even though it’s been going on for a while – wink) — that makes people doubt you even more. It’s up to you and your lawyers.

Next, I would apologize to the patients, like me, that you harmed. Go on, own it. You can do it. This will help us to overcome our PTSD and anxiety and we might even stop bad-mouthing you in the community every chance we get.

After that, I would tell the public that puts their trust, health, and lives in your institutions how you’re going to fix the problems you created. Everyone likes to know you won’t abuse them when they visit your healthcare facility.

And I gotta tell you, people are coming out of the woodworks to tell me what you did to them. For example: I know a patient with a rare form of cancer who visited Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice ER for a health problem and the doctors and nurses hung up on her John Hopkins University cancer specialist. That’s, ummm, horrible. What were you thinking? Fix it!

Finally, offer the patients you abused fair compensation, preferably in a higher amount than the $250,000 cap sovereign immunity affords you. Sovereign immunity protection is provided with the assumption that you will always put patient health first, not that you will turn arrogant and abuse patients because you know you won’t be sued.

Follow this FREE introductory crisis communications consultation, Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, and I’m confident you will find yourselves back on the road to respectability.

Considering what you did to me, I’m available for additional crisis communications consultations for, I don’t know, $250,000 an hour.

October 30, 2024: Great News! Visits to SMHDanger.com are exploding!

A week after our first post and viewership of SMHDanger.com continues to explode! Please continue to share the site with everyone you know. I sure will — until we get this threat eliminated and we, the victims, are recognized and compensated for our pain and suffering.

That’s a win-win for us all. How cool, huh, Sarasota Memorial-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic?

October 30, 2024: Kinda Funny, but not really 😉 visit to the scene of the crime at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice

I began shooting a video about my abusive experiences at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic on Tuesday afternoon. I had a great shoot in downtown Venice, where I tripped and was knocked out. But when I was shooting at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice, two hospital officers approached me and asked what I was doing.

I was honest and told them I was filming a video about how the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital abused me by not treating my multiple facial fractures, including clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket and inside my cheek. And I explained how it was malpractice that they railroaded me off to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. And, well, they kind of freaked out. 😉

I made it off-site with my video, which I will post later today. But, I kinda get the feeling that the hospital police — a crack squad that intimidated me into Marchman Acting myself when I had a head injury — are as poorly trained as the ER doctors and nurses. They covered their faces — maybe in shame — and then called in reinforcements. I happily drove off site with my journalistic stand-up recordings safely stowed away. I even smiled and waved at the officers. Give me points for that.

Whatever’s going on at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice isn’t my fault. I’m actually a victim of their malfeasance. All I can do is be the dedicated messenger — a trained and experienced journalist — I’ve always been and warn the public. What the public does with the information is up to them.

After I post the video recounting my accident and how Sarasota Memorial Hospital made it worse, I’m going to pay a visit to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic to continue to record more of my story — legally, from the sidewalk with the evil empire behind me. 😉

Remember, this isn’t just my story, I’ve met others from Venice with similar experiences. Ask not for whom the Sarasota Memorial Hospital bell tolls, it tolls for thee. Yikes!

Please take a look at Part One of my video, which will be posted on this site and YouTube later today. Part Two will be posted later this week.

I don’t imagine SMHDanger.com will be a short-term project. Steering a sacred (cash) cow takes a lot of effort. And there’s only one of me. So let’s all hang in there until the mission is completed.

October 29, 2024: Sovereign Immunity: A bad deal for patients abused by Sarasota Memorial Hospital

When we’re choosing between a public and private hospital, an important factor for patients to consider is sovereign immunity.

Under Florida state law, Sarasota Memorial Hospital and all its entities are covered by sovereign immunity. This essentially means that if we are abused by the Sarasota Memorial Hospital System, as I certainly was, the legal system considers the hospital a government entity, which means it’s very difficult to sue the system and damages and legal fees are severely limited.

I made this discovery about sovereign immunity after I fell and was knocked unconscious in a Venice, FL, restaurant and paramedics took me to Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. When I came-to, the doctors and nurses told me I had many facial fractures, including clean breaks in my forehead, eye socket, and inside my cheek. The injury was so severe, I could feel the bones in my face flex when I bit down.

Instead of treating my serious injuries, doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice used law officers to intimidate me — a 61-year-old man with a serious head injury — into signing away my rights. Then they sent me on a two hour drive in an ambulance up I-75 to the notoriously dysfunctional North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

When I was discharged from the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, I contacted local media and attorneys to help me warn the public about the scandalous behavior. So far, local media isn’t willing to go after the sacred cash cow that is Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (We’ll talk about this dereliction of journalistic duty in another column.) And the lawyers I contacted said I had a valid malpractice claim against Sarasota Memorial Hospital, but they couldn’t represent me because of, you guessed it: the hospital’s sovereign immunity.

The attorneys told me that under sovereign immunity, the most they could recover in damages from Sarasota Memorial Hospital was $250,000. With malpractice cases requiring many hours of research, they’d go in the hole on my case and I’d get nothing.

Sovereign immunity is meant to protect public hospitals, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital, from frivolous lawsuits. The dangerous flip-side of that is that when patients, like me, have a valid case, it’s impossible to A. Bring a suit to warn the public about the danger at Sarasota Memorial Hospital and B. Receive compensation for the pain and suffering the hospital inflicts on us. (I say “us” because I wasn’t alone in being railroaded to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.)

In the end, I was unconscious and didn’t have a choice in whether to be admitted to a public or private hospital. Now that I’ve been harmed by Sarasota Memorial Hospital, I’d surely choose a private hospital for care in the future. Would you?

October 28, 2024: Halloween horrors and what it was like to have the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital send me to a North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic with a broken face

A fun Saturday night celebrating Halloween with friends put me in a reflective mood about being railroaded to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic by the ER doctors at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.

As a screenwriter and film fan, I can tell you the scariest movies are those that focus on horrific events in daily life. Think of a deranged mass murderer preying on teen babysitters, prom-goers, or campers.

My experience certainly wasn’t that level of terror, but, when you think of it, it would make a great horror movie.

To go from enjoying a night out with a centenarian friend and her 75-year-old daughter, to tripping on a chair, to coming-to in a hospital where you think you’re going to get compassionate care, but everyone treats you with unearned disdain, to being told you have dangerously clean fractures in your brow, eye-socket and inside your cheek (to the point that the bone holding a row of teeth flexes when you eat), to having four public safety or sheriff’s officers stand at the end of your bed to intimidate you into signing away your rights, to being shipped to a treatment center that can’t actually treat your serious injuries and you could possibly bleed out is pretty horrific.

Like all horror movies, the abusive treatment I — and others — received at the hands of the ER doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic has left me with PTSD. I’m also anxious and distrustful of medical and behavioral healthcare providers and first responders. From what I’ve read this is all a natural response to trauma. Getting traumatized by healthcare workers and first responders, is, itself a traumatic experience.

Instead of running from this horrific experience, I’m trying to warn the public that it’s going on in both facilities and many more — according to the articles I’m reading. The question is: Will local journalists and a law firm help me?

Now that question has me on the edge of my seat.

October 25, 2024: Received the following reply to my open letter to the Sarasota Memorial Hospital patient advocate and board of directors regarding the abuse I experienced in the Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice emergency room

Dear Mr. Richardson,

Thank you for reaching out to share your concerns regarding your experience at SMH-Venice. We take your feedback very seriously and will be thoroughly reviewing the care you received.

We will follow up with you as soon as our review is complete.

Sincerely,

Brian

Patient Advocacy Services

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System

I responded to Brian (no last name, apparently):

Thank you, Brian. My face was clean broken in three places and had other fractures. Your ER team sent me to a treatment center. I was terrified I was going to bleed out in a place that couldn’t help me for five days. I look forward to SMH’s explanation. WWB&TB (what would Brian & the board do)?

Sincerely yours:

Lawrence

Brian’s polite and prompt response was greatly appreciated, but it actually increased my concern about Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Is the patient advocate and board truly not aware that the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice were railroading patients, like me, to the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic? The clinic’s pattern of admitting patients who didn’t belong there, providing sub-par treatment, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk insurers was exposed by the Tampa newspaper in 2019. Read the article here.

I, alone, have met two patients who had similar experiences to mine. One was sent to the clinic, the other escaped before they could railroad her. I’m still confused about why Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice was shipping patients two hours north to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. If there’s money involved, federal investigators should consider filing a RICO anti-racketeering suit against all parties.

If the administration isn’t aware this was going on, I have grave concerns.

October 24, 2024: Class Action lawsuit to be filed against Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic

Law firms are warning Acadia Healthcare stock owners that they have until December 16, 2024, to join a class action lawsuit filed against Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic.

According to Rosen Law, Acadia “made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Acadia Healthcare’s business model centered on holding vulnerable people against their will in its facilities, including in cases where it was not medically necessary to do so; (2) while in Acadia Healthcare facilities, many patients were subjected to abuse; (3) Acadia Healthcare deceived insurance providers into paying for patients to stay in its facilities when it was not medically necessary; and (4) as a result, defendants statements about its business, operations, and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims investors suffered damages.”

As an unwilling guest at Acadia Healthcare’s North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic — courtesy of the abusive doctors and nurses in the ER room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice — I can confirm points 1-3. The clinic kept me, even though I had a serious head injury and clean breaks in my eye socket, cheek and brow.

I will gladly testify in the class action lawsuit.

October 23, 2024: Open Letter to Sarasota County Public Hospital Board

As part of my campaign to convince Sarasota Memorial Hospital to admit and remedy the patient abuse committed by their Venice campus ER doctors and nurses when they sent me to the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic instead of treating my fractured face, today I submitted the following open letter to their patient advocate and board of directors:

Dear Advocate and SMH Board:

Please read my website SMHDanger.com which recounts how your Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice ER abused me and other patients by dumping us at the notorious North Tampa Bay Behavior Clinic.

I especially look forward to reading in your response regarding how your SMH-Venice ER department is upholding your core values:

To create an environment that supports and rewards:

Safety
Caring and compassion
Excellence and professionalism
Teamwork and trust
Mutual respect and recognition
Accountable and ethical behavior

That’s certainly not the environment I experienced when I was admitted to SMH-Venice with clean breaks to my eye socket, inner cheek and brow. Your ER doctors and nurses were rude, dismissive and abusive to me, despite my head injuries.

Due to a total lack of trust, I prefer to receive all responses from you in writing and will not speak with anyone about my experience.

Thank you.

Lawrence Richardson

Sarasota Memorial Public Hospital Board Members:

Sarah Lodge, Chair; Brad Baker, First Vice Chairman; Patricia Maraia, Second Vice Chair; Bridgette Fiorucci, Treasurer; Gregory Carter, Assistant Treasurer; Sharon Wetzler, Secretary; Tramm Hudson, Member; Victor Rohe, Member; and William “Bill” Noonan, Member.

October 23, 2024: View the letter in which the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration finds no problems at the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic

Eager to warn the public about the abusive treatment I received at the hands of Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice and the North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic, I contacted the Florida state agency that regulates healthcare facilities in August. I asked an official with the Agency for Healthcare Administration to investigate both hospitals. In September, I received the letter below from Frances B. Lima, the field office manager in the Clearwater office.

Ms. Lima said that investigators made an unannounced visit and found no violations at North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic. This is kind of surprising, considering that the federal government is finding that Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic, is operating many clinics in a fraudulent manner. Specifically, the clinics are admitting patients who don’t belong there, providing substandard care, and keeping patients longer than necessary to bilk health insurers. The Justice Department already fined North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic $20 million.

When Sarasota Memorial Hospital–Venice knew I had three clean fractures in my face — in my eye socket, deep in my cheek, and at my brow — and inappropriately sent me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Clinic without stabilizing me, I experienced every one of the claims listed above. That the state paid a visit and found nothing unusual at the clinic is as unbelievable as the fact that the state won’t sanction the clinic based on my medical records alone.

I guess I just have to accept that the State of Florida doesn’t have a problem with a patient with life-threatening fractures being held for five days at a clinic that can’t treat him.

It’s up to us to stop this patient abuse. I’m glad the federal government is piling on while the state ignores the situation.

October 22, 2024: The US Department of Veteran’s Affairs joins other federal agencies in investigating Acadia Healthcare, parent of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic

The heat is on for Acadia Healthcare, parent company of North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. The New York Times reported that the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs is now investigating the company, which is already the subject of several federal investigations and has paid a $20 million fine to the Department of Justice for fraudulent practices. Acadia is anticipating that the the Securities and Exchange Commission will be the next federal agency to pile on.

October 21, 2024: Welcome to SMHDanger.com!

Welcome to SMHDanger.com. I created this site to make people aware of the dangerous relationship between Sarasota Memorial Hospital and North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. Go to the Home page to read how I fell and sustained three cleanly broken bones in my eye socket, inside my cheek and at my forehead and instead of treating my serious injuries. Sarasota Memorial Hospital sent me to North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic. I know other patients who have had similar experiences. Could you be next?