This section establishes staffing and personnel requirements for adult partial hospitalization programs, including qualifications for the program director (mental health professional with at least 2 years post-graduate clinical experience), minimum staff-to-patient ratios (1 FTE clinical staff per 6 patients based on program capacity), and minimum psychiatric time requirements (2 hours per week per 5 patients of program capacity). Operators must adjust staffing whenever program capacity changes and ensure clinical staff include at least one mental health professional or psychiatric nurse beyond the program director.
View official source55 Pa. Code § 5210.21 - Staffing and personnel State Regulations Compare (a) Program director. The program director shall be a mental health professional and have a minimum of 2 years of post-graduate clinical experience. (b) Staff/patient ratio. Adult partial hospitalization programs shall have a minimum of one full-time equivalent (FTE) clinical staff member to every six patients. Staff/patient ratio is to be determined on the basis of the designed program capacity, such as, a program with a program capacity of 30 would require five FTE staff. When there are changes in the program capacity, appropriate staffing changes shall be made as required. Staff should be of appropriate disciplines and shall include at least one member, other than program director, who is a mental health professional or one member who is a psychiatric nurse. All clinical staff time devoted specifically to the partial program including that of the program director and medical staff shall be included when calculating patient/staff ratio. (c) Psychiatric staff. Adult partial hospitalization programs shall have a minimum of 2 hours of assigned psychiatric time per week for every five patients of program capacity. This is to ensure adequate care and supervision for patients in the partial hospitalization program. Notes 55 Pa. Code § 5210.21 State regulations are updated quarterly; we currently have two versions available. Below is a comparison between our most recent version and the prior quarterly release. More comparison features will be added as we have more versions to compare. No prior version found. State Regulations Toolbox