Winter blues intensifying Utah's mental health care shortage
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.
Read more: How learning to ski helped me stop feeling SAD
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