Lifting a Veil on New York State's Practice of Billing Psychiatric Patients Who Sue.

New York State has long had a policy of countersuing patients who demand compensation for being injured in state psychiatric hospitals. The Office of Mental Health immediately bills them for the time they spend in the hospital, often stopping the case cold and making it nearly impossible for the patient to attract or keep a lawyer, a practice we explored in this article in December. The strategy was hugely effective at quashing claims, even ones borne of extreme tragedy. But to avoid any chance of a public outcry, it now appears that billing personnel were told to code certain cases - for instance, those involving the death or rape of psychiatric patients - differently, apparently to signal the need for special handling, according to an examination of state records turned over in response to a long-running lawsuit called Brown v. Stone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]