After years of abuse allegations, Options Behavioral Health is shutting down

Options Behavioral Health Hospital will close Oct. 9.

Acadia Healthcare, which operates Options and dozens of other psychiatric hospitals, confirmed the news in a Sept. 10 email to Mirror Indy.

“Following a careful and comprehensive review of the current landscape for programs and services offered by our network of affiliated facilities,” a company spokesperson wrote, “Acadia has made the decision to close four facilities, including Options.”

Acadia did not immediately respond to Mirror Indy questions about the three other facilities, including whether they are located in Indiana. The company also declined to answer questions about why it decided to shut down Options.
 

The closure comes about a year after Mirror Indy started investigating troubling reports at the Indianapolis-area mental health facility: 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.

Across the country, facilities tied to Acadia face similar allegations. The behavioral health giant was at the center of a New York Times investigation and a fraud probe from the Department of Justice, which settled for about $20 million.

Acadia has been embroiled in about a dozen lawsuits as Indiana patients sue Options on allegations of medical negligence and racketeering. That litigation will continue, attorney Chad Bradford said, even as the facility closes.

“We’ve located a corporate entity in Acadia that’s profiteering off of vulnerable people,” said Bradford, a partner at Cohen & Malad, an Indianapolis law firm pursuing the cases. “We’re satisfied it’s coming to an end at this location, but we don’t think it was the only one out there.”

Acadia has repeatedly declined to comment on the Indiana cases, citing patient privacy.

‘The state knew about it’

Paige Dufour was the first person to speak to Mirror Indy about Options.

During her March 2024 stay at the facility, the Noblesville mother said staff berated her, threatened her when she tried to leave and coerced her to strip naked for photos.
 

“It’s a relief to know Options will not be a threat to people in this community anymore,” Dufour, 40, said. “It’s hard for me to understand why they were able to hurt so many people for so long when the state knew about it.”

Mental health facilities like Options are regulated by a mix of state and federal agencies. The Indiana Department of Health, for example, substantiated at least 30 deficiencies at the facility since 2020, including multiple patient rights violations.

Each time, Options submitted a plan of correction promising to do better next time.

Indiana’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction, which is part of the Family and Social Services Administration, can pull a facility’s license when patient safety is threatened or federal or state regulations are violated.

The agency hasn’t publicly taken any action against Options. State records show, as of Sept. 2, the facility still had an active license.

Acadia made the decision to shut Options down, a DMHA spokesperson said in a Sept. 10 email to Mirror Indy, and informed state authorities.

State Rep. Julie McGuire supported the outcome, but said there still needs to be more transparency at mental health facilities.
 

“It is best for Indiana that they are not operating unless they are willing to treat patients properly,” McGuire said.

The Indianapolis Republican recently authored a new law that would require hospitals and mental health facilities to disclose their financial reports, ownership stakes and private equity partnerships.

The abuse reports at Options, McGuire said, are tied to these larger problems. Though now a publicly traded company, Acadia was originally founded by a private equity firm.

“Whenever private equity is involved, prices go up and quality goes down,” she said. “And while technically they are doing things by the book, these horrible incidents happen.”

Acadia CEO: Local news coverage has been ‘problematic’

Even before Acadia announced the closures, there were signs of upheaval.

Last month, Angel Canales listened to the Fortune 1000 company’s second quarter earnings call. Acadia raked in more than $800 million in revenue.

Canales, meanwhile, recently lost her customer service job. She missed too many shifts so she could take care of her 13-year-old daughter, who was attacked by another patient at Options. The child, who has a history of seizures from epilepsy, sustained head injuries. But staff never sought medical attention.
 

“I’m struggling to pick up the pieces while these people get rich,” said Canales, who lives in Goshen.

But during the call, Acadia’s leadership told shareholders about their losses, too. That includes a group of facilities where patient referrals from sources like hospitals and therapists are down.

And one particular facility, according to the CFO, lost the company $3 million. CEO Christopher Hunter called it a "deterioration in performance."

One investor asked what was behind the loss at the unnamed facility.

Hunter blamed local news coverage. “It has just proven to be problematic and has challenged us with respect to volumes,” he said.

Right then, Canales said she perked up. She believes they were talking about Options.

A spokesperson for Acadia declined to comment on the earnings call, though the company did not dispute that its CEO was singling out Options in his remarks.

“Stop worrying about your losses for a minute,” Canales said. “Let’s address what the families are going through. You’re profiting off of our pain.

Acadia moves to open new Indy facility

Many former Options patients, reached by phone, celebrated the facility’s closure. But some are still worried about the parent company.

“They aren't shutting down,” said Craig Inman, a father from Frankfort. “They are moving down the road with a new name on the building.”

He is suing Acadia on behalf of his 12-year-old daughter. She was held at Options against the family’s wishes, according to the lawsuit, for nearly two weeks last September. Staff also held her down, per a health department investigation, and injected her with benzodiazepines.
 

“This is still not good enough,” Inman continued. “Acadia is still working in multiple states, and they are the problem.”

As Options closes its doors, the company behind it is set to open a new facility, Milestones Behavioral Health, on Indy’s west side.

This article first appeared on Mirror Indy and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.