Changes to the financial responsibility for juvenile court ordered psychiatric evaluations reduce inpatient services utilization: an interrupted time series study.

Background: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the impact of a July 2008 Tennessee Court of Appeals opinion that shifted financial responsibility for juvenile court ordered psychiatric evaluations from the State to the County.

Methods: We used de-identified administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and mid-year population estimates from the U.S.