What to know about Larimer County's behavorial health center ... - Coloradoan

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Realizing the need for more behavioral health services in Larimer County, voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase in 2018.

In early December, that investment will begin coming to life with the opening of a new acute care center designed to address a wide range of mental-health and substance-abuse issues, from simple anxiety attacks to recovery from drug overdoses.

SummitStone Health Partners will staff and operate the center under a renewable five-year contract approved last month by the county commissioners. Operational costs for 2024, outlined in the contract, are projected to be $21.7 million.

A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Acute Care Center on the Behavioral Health Services at Longview Campus has been scheduled for Sept. 22, Larimer County officials said. The campus name comes from the Long View Open Space and Long View trails in that part of the county, while also serving as "a metaphor for the journey to mental health and recovery with an eye on the future," according to informational material on the county's website, larimer.gov.

"There's nothing easy about crisis care, but our hope is that this facility becomes more of an easy button for the community," said Brian Ferrans, the deputy executive director of SummitStone Health Partners. "If you have behavior crisis needs, whatever they are, come to our facility. We will assess you and we will figure out where you need to get to."

What services will be available at the Longview behavioral health center?

The acute-care center will be open around the clock and provide behavioral health urgent care, care coordination, substance-use treatment with medications, withdrawal management, a crisis stabilization unit and an on-site pharmacy and laboratory.

The center meets Colorado's requirements for both inpatient and outpatient behavioral health care and substance-use disorder treatment, said Cassie Damato, SummitStone's director of acute care.

Bringing mental health care and substance-use treatment together under one roof is one of the most important and unique aspects of the Longview facility, said Dr. Lesley Brooks, SummitStone's chief medical officer and executive director of the acute care center.

There are no others like it in the region, and few others in the country, Brooks said.

"We're treating the whole person," Damato said. "It's been exciting to have Dr. Brooks' expertise in addiction medicine merge with the community mental health center. And that's the beauty of this facility ... it's truly behavioral health services in treating substance-use disorder and mental illness with the whole person. And we're able to provide a little bit of physical health care, as well. That approach is what makes this facility so innovative."

Although there will be medical staff on-site to treat minor injuries people might suffer during behavioral health crises, it will not offer emergency care for life-threatening situations, Brooks said.

Additional services will be phased in based on community needs and staffing, including short-term residential care for clients focused on recovery, an opioid treatment program, and a training and a professional development program for behavioral health workers.

Plans call for the construction of an adolescent care facility next door to the acute care center, and work on that building — for an estimated $36 million — could begin as early as next year, said Ken Cooper, Larimer County's facilities director.

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Who can access these services?

Patients can come in on their own for an assessment or be brought to the center by family, friends, neighbors or law-enforcement or emergency medical services workers.

The facility includes a sally port for the secure transfer of patients brought in by law-enforcement vehicles or ambulance to secure treatment rooms.

"We really want to highlight that this facility is for everyone, and it is not just a place for those who are completely dysregulated," Brooks said. "It is a place for everyone, coming in their self-defined crisis. We're really hoping to address the stigma that is often attached to folks who have behavioral health needs."

Where is this new center located?

The acute-care center is located just west of Taft Hill Road, where Trilby Road ends, about halfway between Fort Collins and Loveland. The address of the approximately 60,000-square foot facility is 2260 W. Trilby Road.

The 40-acre behavioral health campus part of a larger piece of county property that includes the landfill to the north, said Ken Cooper, Larimer County's facilities director.

It's a good central location for the majority of the county's residents, who live mostly in Fort Collins and Loveland, county health director Tom Gonzales said, and easier for people coming from the county's third-largest city, Estes Park, to reach than a location on the east side of either Fort Collins or Loveland. Wellington town officials and others have raised concerns about the lack of access to the site through public transportation, and Gonzales said that is something the county is working to address.

"We'll have to look at more of our rural areas and how we provide good access for those individuals, and there's a group of us looking at that," Gonzales said. "That will be key ... that everybody has that equitable access, and that's always with anything we provide in the community. So we're going to definitely look at it from a health-equity lens in how we can meet those needs."

SummitStone is contractually required to arrange for or provide transportation for clients to and from the facility to locations within Larimer County and may not discharge a patient from the center without ensuring they have adequate transportion.

Where are services being provided now?

The services offered by the acute care center are available at various locations throughout the county now, but there's no central location for someone experiencing behavioral health issues to go. Some wind up in hospital emergency rooms, which receive an average of 55 visits each month related to drug overdoses, either accidental or intentional, Gonzales said. Others end up in the Larimer County Jail, brought there by law enforcement agencies for the protection of the patient and those around them.

SummitStone has an existing acute-care center in northeast Fort Collins that can accommodate up to 10 patients for overnight treatment or observation, and it has 10 other facilities throughout the county providing behavioral health services, said Damato, SummitStone's director of acute services.

UCHealth provides many of the same services at its Mountain Crest Behavorial Health Center and other facilities in the county, Damato and Brooks said.

Banner Health, the Health District of Northern Larimer County and other health care providers in the area also provide some behavioral health services.

There are no overnight detoxification facilities in the county, though, Gonzales said, requiring law-enforcement and emergency medical services workers to transport people who need a safe place to recover to hospital emergency rooms or detox facilities in Weld or other neighboring counties.

The acute behavioral care center "certainly fills the gap for the substance-use treatment, detox kind of stuff," Gonzales said. "We didn't have that resource."

Larimer County's hospital emergency rooms need to have beds available for patients suffering from other life-threatening injuries or illnesses, including future pandemics that might strain the system the way COVID-19 did, he said.

"One of the goals of this facility is to avoid the emergency department being the front door to these services," Brooks said.

Who will pay for services provided by the acute care center?

Billing for services will work much the same way as it does with hospitals and other medical providers, Brooks said, promising that nobody will be turned away because they don't have insurance or other sources of payment.

SummitStone participates in Colorado's Medicaid program, as well as the federal Medicare program.

Co-payments and deductibles will be the responsibility of patients who have insurance for the services they receive, whether it be covered under mental health services or substance-use disorders coverage.

How many patients can the acute care center accommodate?

The initial phase of operations will accommodate up to 40 patients for overnight observation or treatment, SummitStone's Ferrans said. That includes beds in both individual and shared rooms in the crisis stabilization and substance-use withdrawal units and chairs that can be reclined to a sleeping position in the observation and withdrawal units.

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When fully operational, the facility will be able to accommodate about 70 patients for overnight stays, some in a residential treatment unit that will not be open in the initial phase. SummitStone officials were hesistant to give a timeline for the phasing in of additional beds and services but hope to have the center fully staffed and operational within a year of the the initial opening.

The size and scope of the facility was designed to meet the county's needs as determined through a series of assessments by Larimer County Department of Health and Environment staff and others, Gonzales said.

How large will the acute center staff be?

Initial staffing plans call for 125 direct staff of the facility and another 45 for support staff, Ferrans said.

He's been actively recruiting across the country to fill those positions since January, he said, and is looking for clinicians (licensed and unlicensed), registered nurses, medical assistants, behavioral health technicians, peer specialists, care coordinators, transport drivers, supply-chain technicians, medical technicians and lab technicians, among others.

"If you envision opening up a small hospital, that's the scale of it," he said. "So, we've got lots of opportunities for people interested in behavioral health work. And as we expand, we'll continue hiring more."

Will patients be able to call the acute care center for help?

Yes, Damato said.

SummitStone's existing crisis line, 970-494-4200, will be transitioned from its current acute care facility at 1217 Riverside Ave. in Fort Collins to the Longview facility when it opens to patients in early December, she said. Phone calls from Larimer County to Colorado's statewide crisis hotline, 844-493-TALK (8255), staffed by Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, will also be redirected to the Longview facility, she said, because staff there will have a better understanding of the resources available locally.

When appropriate, the center will also receive calls redirected from 988, the national suicide and crisis lifeline.

Can behavioral health care be normalized?

One of the primary goals of the new acute care center is to make behavioral health services more accessible, Gonzales and others said.

Many county residents suffer from mental health and/or substance-abuse issues alone in their own homes, without receiving the treatment they need.

Some aren't aware of the services available to them, while others don't feel their situation warrants an emergency response by police or paramedics. Others still fear the stigma of having neighbors, friends or co-workers see them put into a police car or ambulance for transport to a facility to address their behavioral health needs.

"When we're out in the community doing our community health assessment work and trying to get the quantitative data as well as the qualitative, the stories are, 'My family member or friend had this mental health crisis, and they didn't want to be picked up by a police car and taken to the hospital,' " Gonzales said. "That's where many folks are; they won't seek the treatment that they should to prevent these poor outcomes, and this should, hopefully, destigmatize this. It's all about whole health, and hopefully folks utilize this service when they are in that crisis state to get the care they need."

Anyone can come into the acute care center at any time to have their needs evaluated by behavioral health professionals and receive treatment or, when appropriate, referrals for outpatient care through behavioral health providers throughout Larimer County, Damato said.

"Really the intention is to be able to broaden access to behavioral health care in treating the whole person by attending to anyone's self-defined behavioral health crisis," she said. "So, at any time, day or night, people can call, people can walk in so people can be seen. We can assess whatever their need may be and determine if that's an important admission to one of our care units or provide comprehensive safety planning and discharge into the community for one of the really great services our community has to offer."

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

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