Crime and Fraud in the Mental Health Industry
Medicaid/Medicare fraud. Sexual assault. Child molestation.
Rape. Drug possession. Child pornography. Murder. Patient abuse.
These are all crimes for which psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health practitioners have been criminally charged, convicted, lost their licenses, and/or been found to have committed discreditable conduct.
A prison term or revoked license has not always stopped a psychiatrist from later attempting to acquire a license elsewhere or even to take up unlicensed practice or practice in a sector of the healing arts that is not regulated.
Psychiatric and psychological professional associations do not police ethical breaches, violations of law or criminality in their ranks. Instead, as former president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Paul Fink, arrogantly admitted: "It is the task of the APA to protect the earning power of psychiatrists."1
For these reasons, Citizens Commission on Human Rights developed this database that lists people in the mental health industry who have been criminally charged, convicted and/or sentenced as well as those who have been investigated and charged by state health care licensing boards. Utilizing this database and other investigative sources, members of the public, government agencies and others can track disciplinary or criminal cases, and verify whether a mental health practitioner has existing charges, and the result of prior charges including criminal or disciplinary records or convictions.
1 Excerpt from Fink's candidacy statement (for presidency of the American Psychiatric Association), Psychiatric News, December 19, 1986.
