S.F., Nevada reach tentative settlement in patient-dumping case

City attorney Dennis Herrera (front) listens as San Francisco deputy city attorney Sara Eisenberg speaks in defense of City College of San Francisco in Superior Court in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, December 9, 2014. less City attorney Dennis Herrera (front) listens as San Francisco deputy city attorney Sara Eisenberg speaks in defense of City College of San Francisco in Superior Court in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close S.F., Nevada reach tentative settlement in patient-dumping case 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Nevada has agreed to pay $400,000 to San Francisco for the costs of caring for 24 homeless, indigent former mental patients who were sent to the city with one-way bus tickets from a Nevada state psychiatric hospital.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval announced the tentative settlement Monday of a lawsuit filed in September 2013 by City Attorney Dennis Herrera. The agreement still needs to be approved by Nevada’s Board of Examiners and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The practice, now discontinued, was exposed by the Sacramento Bee, which reported that Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada’s primary state mental health facility, had sent a 48-year-old patient on a 15-hour bus ride to Sacramento, where he arrived disoriented with no family, friends, or arrangements for housing or care. The hospital had allegedly told him to call 911 when he arrived.

The Chronicle later reported the ordeal of a deaf and blind man who found himself homeless in San Francisco after a one-way ride from a Nevada mental hospital. Herrera said in his suit that Rawson-Neal had sent 500 mental patients to California and that the city had spent $500,000 to provide medical care, housing and other assistance to 20 of the 24 patients bused to San Francisco.

An independent hospital commission revoked Rawson-Neal’s accreditation in 2013, and a federal agency later threatened to cut off the hospital’s Medicare funding. The hospital improved its practices and regained its accreditation after an infusion of Nevada state funding.

Sandoval said in a statement Monday that the settlement would “validate the patient management best practices and procedures” which, he said, Nevada has had in place for the past two years.

“We look forward to working with California to ensure all patient transfers to and from both states are managed using these best practices and adhering to conditions detailed in the agreement,” the governor said.

Nevada officials had accused California cities of similarly sending mental patients to Nevada. San Francisco gives bus tickets to transients, in a program called Homeward Bound, but city officials say they make sure the traveler has a family member or friend at the destination with housing and other support.

The settlement followed Nevada’s unsuccessful attempts to dismiss San Francisco’s lawsuit.

Herrera’s spokesman, Matt Dorsey, declined to comment on the settlement.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko