Kenna Says: Complaint Processes are Important, but doesn’t Yeild the Results We Deserve

I Was Violated by a Mental Health Provider — Now What Can I Do?

I am right there with you; and I know it takes a while to get over the harm they do to us. I continue to cycle through tears, flashbacks and fury even as I write this piece. I imagine you do some of the same. I am here to stand in solidarity.

Nothing About Us, Without Us.

I want to go over the most impactful complaint options we have; knowing that there will be differences from state to state — but these are the overall options throughout the country. First, you must decide which laws or ethics rules you believe were violated, and by whom. To be honest, I personally used AI to help me make sense of that chaos. I also highly recommend getting your medical records from the provider; but please armor yourself — it is entirely possible that someone you trusted wrote some stuff that is hurtful. It is actually more than possible. It is likely.

Most Effective: Individual Licensing Complaints

The most effective complaint avenue by far is individual mental health licensing board complaints. Anyone licensed to practice any type of medicine — including mental health care — is licensed by a state board and accountable to that board to follow laws and ethics regulations. If you believe you can point to an individual who engaged in behavior toward you that was unethical, this is your avenue. The individuals who broke good faith have a lot more to lose than the institution, who can and will continue to hide behind their money and expensive lawyers. You should know their names and licensing from your records — from there you can look up your local state licensing board, search for that person, and file a complaint. I have done this several times and will be happy to help you through the process.

Insurance / Medicaid / Medicare

Another highly useful complaint avenue is the insurer. If you are insured through state Medicaid or Medicare and they paid for your care, you can file a complaint with the insurer, which reaches into state funding. This is your avenue if you believe the organization engaged in larger bad-faith actions that were knowingly and predictably harmful. In my case this was not effective — NARBHA, and through them The Guidance Center, was too well-connected and unethically protected by that relationship (in my opinion, of course) — however, I believe in most cases this can be an expensive avenue for them and can produce results related to trauma-informed care training. Please note that different states will have different statutes of limitations for this.

Arizona Attorney General / State Attorney General

File here if you can prove fraud — the most prevalent complaint is billing fraud. Fraudulent record keeping, ADA violations, treatment that touches on illegal or criminal acts, or treatment you didn’t consent to all belong here.

Office of Civil Rights (OCR)

OCR is a federal organization, and complaints to them can feed into a federal funding pipeline. OCR complaints should center around discrimination or different treatment of a protected minority — or if you can prove HIPAA violations. HIPAA violations are not only about your confidentiality; they also cover how providers manage and protect your medical records more broadly. My personal experience filing with OCR was lackluster, and I want to be honest about that. Still, it is a way to build a paper trail and let a file build against an organization — and it may feed into a larger pattern investigation down the line.

Heavy Hitters: When Standard Avenues Are Exhausted

When all of those avenues have been exhausted, there are a few escalations worth trying — carefully. These are heavy hitters and they need your complaints to be strongly founded in law. If you can afford an attorney, I recommend it. Beyond general harmful wrongdoing by the institution, these complaints need something additional. I made my complaints based on financial misconduct by The Guidance Center. In this arena, no matter how much you were harmed, that is secondary — I am sorry, I know it is horrible, but I want to be realistic.

• Your local Attorney General’s office — allege general illegal acts, not just those against you
• The IRS — if you can prove financially questionable or illegal acts, the IRS is your heavy hitter
• SAMHSA (or other federal funders) — if the organization receives SAMHSA funding, you can report them directly

Depending on your state laws you may also be able to file under Duty of Candor statutes if they have stonewalled you beyond all reason.

As always, Between Trust and Trauma will be happy to help you file necessary complaints — if nothing else, it costs the institution money to defend against.

A Note of Caution

I personally believe using these complaint processes are important — but you will not get even close to what you deserve through these procedures. The systems are designed to protect the organization. This is simply reality. However, filing the complaints does a few things: it forces them to spend money on self-defense, and that isn’t cheap. It also forces some introspection and can require internal training — not enough, but something.

And this cannot be said loudly enough: the organization you file against will retaliate. Retaliation is illegal and worth documenting — but they will lash out and do everything in their power to silence you. Move your services somewhere else, because they are about to do their best to harm you.

Filing complaints gives us — the survivors of mental health institutional harm — a voice, a way to stand together, and a way to develop language to accurately describe the abuse so many of these organizations engage in. This is not nothing. Grassroots work will be ongoing for years to come to hold behavioral health organizations accountable for the harm they frequently do. By standing together and developing that language, we help each other and the cause move forward.

Between Trust and Trauma, and I — Malene — are here for you every single step of the way if you decide to go this route. We stand together. We stand in solidarity. We work for improvement of services.