Clinical and community-service activities of psychiatric teaching hospitals

Because funding for teaching hospitals is threatened in the cost-conscious era of managed care, teaching hospitals must demonstrate their value. To ex amine the clinical and community-service activities of teaching hospitals, this study compared academic medical centers (AMCs) and other hospitals ope rating psychiatric residency programs with nonteaching hospitals. Data for the study are from the National Mental Health Facilities Survey, a national survey of providers of inpatient psychiatric cave in the United States con ducted at the beginning of the current managed care era. When compared with nonteaching hospitals, both types of teaching hospitals offered a larger n umber of specialized services and had a higher psychiatrist-to-patient rati o. The AMCs received a higher proportion of their revenues from Medicaid th an did the nonteaching hospitals. Other teaching hospitals collected a lowe r percentage of their inpatient charges than the nonteaching hospitals. Thi s study supports the notion that psychiatric teaching hospitals provided mo re cave to low-income and underinsured persons than the nonteaching hospita ls and that they offer more services and move psychiatric oversight. The au thors find justification for supporting psychiatric teaching hospitals for their clinical and community-service activities.