Psychiatrist allegedly held patients against their will


The following is an excerpt from MedPage Today.

An Arkansas psychiatrist is being sued by more than 25 patients and has been eyed by that state’s attorney general for his role in an alleged scheme that involved holding patients against their will for days or weeks, according to NBC News.

Brian Hyatt, MD — who until recently was also the chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board — allegedly held patients against their will far longer than the 72 hours allowed under state law.

A longer hold would require consent from a judge, according to the story.

One of those patients is William VanWhy, whose partner had to work with a lawyer to get a court order for VanWhy’s release. A sheriff enforced the court order.

VanWhy’s lawyer, Aaron Cash, had previously represented patients with similar experiences with Hyatt.

“I think that they were running a scheme to hold people as long as possible, to bill their insurance as long as possible before kicking them out the door, and then filling the bed with someone else,” Cash told NBC News.

Another patient described feeling imprisoned while under Hyatt’s “care.”

The state attorney general’s office accused Hyatt of scamming Medicaid by claiming to treat patients he rarely saw and then billing for the highest severity code possible, though he has not been charged with a crime. Over 2.5 years, Medicaid paid $800,000 to Hyatt’s facility, the article stated.

“I will continue to defend myself in the proper forum against the false allegations being made against me,” Hyatt wrote in a letter reported by NBC News.

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6 thoughts on “Psychiatrist allegedly held patients against their will”

  1. I think full measure is the best information television show thus far. However, due to the influx of wild hogs both in the farming indystries and private home owners they are damaging the land. I would like to see Full Measure to do a segment on the damaging effect the wild hogs are doing.

    1. I watched a long report on a major media channel in 2015 about this problem: the proliferation of wild boars in nearly all the states. I recall them stating that boar hunters were capturing some and transporting them to areas in other states without a resident population. They are indeed destructive.

  2. Brian Hyatt is VERY fortunate that none of his “prisoners” responded in a violent manner….as in, taking an automation weapon and eliminating life at his place of business.
    The AMA stated a long time ago, over 60% of the U.S. population is medicated with 1 or more “prescribed substances” and that 60% does not include all the “self-medicated” individuals that he either did hold, or could have held, as a “prisoner”.
    BLIND Greed makes individuals “blind” to that reality.
    There are many “sovereign citizen group” type individuals who have an “abode” within Arkansas.
    Those individuals, on a good day, are “unstable”.
    EVERYONE involved appears to be very fortunate to be alive and not shot.
    Now, Arkansas authorities must handle this situation, civilly and criminally, within the court system.

  3. Involuntary hospitalization is a vastly under-reported issue in America, where people can be held for 72 hours — or longer, depending on a supposed “diagnosis” by a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist who might not have even interviewed the respondent — on the flimsiest accusations by any one of a variety of people — from relatives to police officers to social workers, etc. — predicated on wholly-subjective information, often submitted by third parties with malicious intent.

    An investigative reporter could do worse than devoting his or her entire attention to this issue which is only getting worse year by year.

  4. How is this different from covid internment camps that NYS Gov Hochul wants to establish to keep people locked up against their will, for “the good of others?”

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