Partial hospitalization: criteria for admission.

Psychiatric partial hospitalization (day treatment) has long been recognized as a cost-effective alternative to inpatient psychiatric treatment. However, this modality has been underutilized in the past. Present circumstances in medicine and psychiatry warrant the reconsideration of this treatment modality. This paper presents criteria for admission and utilization of psychiatric partial-hospitalization services. This is an effort to present a prototype for utilization of this service which can be used not only to educate referral sources but to provide a framework for review of admission and lengths of stay for third-party payers and other interested parties who, at the present time, are not familiar with this type of service. Clinical examples were provided.