Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (PRTFs) are designed to serve children who need long-term, intensive treatment and a more highly structured environment than they can receive in family and other community-based alternatives to hospitalization.

These eight- or nine-bed facilities are less restrictive and more homelike than hospitals. The facilities also serve children who are transitioning from hospitals, but who are still not ready for the demands of living at home or in a foster home.

Financed by Medicaid under the Inpatient Under-21 option, these programs are operated by private corporations. Construction and operation of PRTFs require a Certificate of Need as stated in KRS 216B.455. They operate under regulations 902 KAR 20:320 and 902 KAR 20:330, which were developed through the joint efforts of the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities, the Department for Community-Based Services, and the Office of the Inspector General (then the Division of Licensing and Regulation). See Related Links for more information and a listing of Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities.

Division of Behavioral Health personnel provide technical assistance to providers and applicants, and help to coordinate the development of these programs at the state level.

See Related Links for 42 CFR Parts 441 and 483: Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration – "Medicaid Program; Use of Restraint and Seclusion in Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities Providing Inpatient Psychiatric Services to Individuals Under Age 21," Interim Final Rule.

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