AOT Myths: Debunked

There is a lot of misinformation about assisted outpatient treatment.

Here is a quick look at some of the myths and realities involved.

MYTH: Assisted Outpatient Treatment is going to fill hospital wards.

REALITY: Assisted Outpatient Treatment is designed to help people succeed out of the hospital. It helps those with a history of non-compliance induced dangerousness comply with treatment and therefore prevents them from deteriorating to the point where they need hospitalization.

MYTH: Assisted Treatment will empty hospital wards.

REALITY: Inpatient hospitalization will still be needed for those incapable of surviving safely in the community. Assisted outpatient treatment facilitates early short-term rehospitalization for those noncompliant and likely to become dangerous.

MYTH: Assisted outpatient treatment does not work.

REALITY: Studies in Iowa, North Carolina, Hawaii, Arizona and other states have definitively proven assisted outpatient treatment works.

MYTH: Assisted Outpatient Treatment will bust the budget.

REALITY: Assisted Treatment is not expensive because it does not mandate any services that individuals with brain disorders are not already entitled to (example: case management, medications, rehabilitation). Assisted Outpatient Treatment Orders merely require the system to facilitate compliance for non-compliant individuals by giving them the services they need to keep well and the surrounding community safe.

MYTH: Assisted outpatient treatment is unconstitutional.

REALITY: Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have assisted outpatient treatment laws. The Supreme Court has overturned none of these laws.

MYTH: Assisted treatment infringes on civil liberties.

REALITY: It is the illness, not the treatment that restricts civil liberties. Medicines can free individuals from the “Bastille of their psychosis” and enable them to engage in a meaningful exercise of their civil liberties. Assisted outpatient treatment cuts the need for incarceration, restraints, and involuntary inpatient commitment, allowing individuals to retain more of their civil liberties.

For more information: www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org