AOT: Timely, Appropriate Psychiatric Community Care Plus Subsistence

Discuss the need for timely, appropriate treatment for serious mental illness (SMI) through AOT programs. Your input is invited at (347)857-3293. Most families experiencing mental health crisis agree that their mentally disabled loved ones would be able to avoid psychotic episodes if the patients were faithful to their mental health treatment program and took their meds. However, many Americans with SMI are untreated, some because they have no health insurance that covers mental disfunctions, and others because patients refuse to accept treatment and take prescribed meds.

Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs mandate continued psychiatric treatment and provide subsistence assistance (food and housing) for Americans with SMI. AOT programs reduce homelessness, arrests and incarceration, hospitalization, and deaths caused by the lack of treatment. That means less crime and safer communities, lower prison costs, and restoration to wholesome living for many sick people.

We congratulate the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), which endorsed unanimously the “authorization, implementation, appropriate funding, and consistent use of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) laws to ensure treatment in the least restrictive setting possible for individuals whose illness prevents them from otherwise accessing such care voluntarily.” The IACP represents more than 20,000 members in more than 100 countries (see more at the Treatment Advocacy Center website). Nobody knows the needs of people with SMI like their psychiatrists, their families and police. With few exceptions, they agree that AOT would make ours a safer and more humane society. Please call and give your opinions on air.

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