Community residential and partial hospital care: low-cost alternative systems in the spectrum of care.

The treatment of serious mental illness in private psychiatric hospitals is undergoing radical change. Instead of costly, long-term inpatient hospitalization, low-cost alternatives are emerging as a vital part of a new "system of care." These alternatives include a range of community residences and partial hospitalization. The creation of these facilities enables a psychiatric hospital to meet the new health care economic realities by containing the cost of treating the most seriously ill patients. Simultaneously, these services provide more adequate treatment for such patients and sustain a core value system of clinical rehabilitation.