Winter blues intensifying Utah's mental health care shortage
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Utah's persistent shortage of mental health care is reaching one of its tightest times of the year: the aftermath of winter's darkest days.
The big picture: Shorter days, frequent cloud cover and colder temps can trigger seasonal affective disorder in many otherwise healthy people — but that's not the only fallout.
- For many Utahns, winter makes existing illnesses more acute, turning outpatients to inpatients and exhausting the state's already meager supply of care providers.
Threat level: At Weber Recovery Center, a 42-bed behavioral health and addiction facility in Ogden, intakes typically spike 10% to 30% in the winter months amid delays for early interventions like therapy, owner Jay Tobey told Axios.
- Opportunities to avoid full-blown crises evaporate "if you get put on a waitlist and it's February, and you don't see someone until the end of March, maybe April," Tobey said.
State of play: The nonprofit Mental Health America ranked Utah at No. 46 in 2024 for its high prevalence of depression and anxiety, combined with low access to care for adults.
- As of 2024, the state had the nation's third-highest share of adults with serious mental illness, per a report from the University of Utah.
By the numbers: A 2022 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly 36% of Utah adults reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression couldn't get the counseling or therapy they needed, compared with about 28% nationally.
The intrigue: For patients requiring inpatient care, the shortage is particularly dire.
- Utah's largest for-profit psychiatric hospital shut down in 2024 after investigations by FOX 13 uncovered years of patient safety problems. That eliminated 83 beds.
- State lawmakers funded 30 extra beds to open in 2022 at the 300-patient state hospital in Provo but couldn't immediately fill them because of "critical staffing shortages" — and those slots are expected to be overwhelmed by 2027.
Zoom in: Tobey's primary company, North Star Recover & Wellness, plans to invest $150 million in acquiring and expanding inpatient care providers, with hopes of operating 500 new beds in Utah in the next two years, he said.
- But its larger goal is to add longer-term outpatient services, both to preempt crises and to make sure care isn't disrupted once patients are discharged.
- "Our clients were trying to get additional services, and we send them to the market, and they get put on a 60-person waitlist," Tobey said.
Friction point: Unlike behemoth medical systems like Intermountain Health, mental health services tend to be "siloed," Tobey said.
- That often leaves patients on their own to find providers who will continue the types of treatment that worked for them, accept their insurance, and are taking new patients — an elusive trifecta.
What's next: The nonprofit Kem and Carolyn Gardner Crisis Care Center is expected to open at the end of March in South Salt Lake, adding 24 short-term inpatient beds and 30 one-day crisis care beds to the state.