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To throw on the anecdote pile... my brother was committed due to overreaction of an LSD trip. He had been up for days and was almost incoherent after being brought in to the emergency room by the police. They said it would be 2 days, then 5 days, then another week. I called and told them that his insurance had contacted me and said they weren't going to be paying for any additional time. He was released the same day.

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I was about to comment with a similar anecdote. Situations will be different depending on the psychiatric facilities, but there are some, usually the most expensive ones (and being expensive is not at all an indicator of being a good one), in which some physicians have no issue keeping people in there as long as there is money to be drained from the family. Worse, the psychiatric state of the patient has not necessarily improved during that costly stay.

I feel like this conversation has gone entirely sideways based on someones' random unrelated anecdote.

What does this have to do with the police showing up when you call 911 instead of a few social workers (who can't actually commit anyone)?

This program is far far more likely to deal with homeless people than people with insurance that can cover multiple days in a facility.

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