Patients Kept Against Their Will in Medicaid Scam
July 24, 2023 | Arkansas
A leading Arkansas psychiatrist is being investigated for falsely holding potentially hundreds of people in a giant Medicaid scam — with video footage showing him touring hospital hallways without spending any time with patients.
Dr. Brian Hyatt, 50, is under investigation by state and federal authorities — and facing lawsuits from at least 26 patients who say they were kept against their will, sometimes for weeks, according to NBC News.
Some patients even got court orders to be freed by sheriff’s deputies, with one caught on an officer’s bodycam telling him: “Oh my gosh. You saved my life.”
“It was as if I was in a prison,” mom of three Shannon Williams, 52, told NBC News of being held for five days while denying she was suicidal and begging for release.
Hyatt quit as chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board in late May after Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents executed a search warrant at his private practice, the report said. (Excerpt from the New York Post.)
