Local and state health officials said they have little authority to check the finances of troubled private providers of mental health and disability services like the one that closed suddenly last month.
“Our oversight and our monitoring is more about quality of services, and there is nothing in our standardized check sheets from (the state) that talks about financial issues,” said Foster Norman, area director of Southeastern Center for Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services. “There is really no financial information that we can collect at this point and time. We really don’t have a mechanism.”
Under the state’s mental health system, local management entities like Southeastern disperse state funds to private providers, reimbursing them for services like case management and assistance to individuals.
