For West Springs Psychiatric Hospital and its parent company, Mind Springs Health, 2025 was slated as a year of massive potential — positive and negative alike.
The regional behavioral health provider made headlines throughout 2024 over concerns that it would have to close its acute psychiatric hospital, once the only of its kind between Salt Lake City and Denver.
“I have said this to everyone who will listen: if I close that (psychiatric emergency room), people are going to die in this community that wouldn’t otherwise have died,” then-chief executive officer of Mind Springs, John Sheehan, said in April 2024. “That is a fact.”
To make a long story short, Sheehan, said the organization faced financial jeopardy because the Grand Junction-based insurer, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, was referring locals elsewhere and shorting the provider in reimbursements. That came to a head with an arbitration agreement — the details of which remain confidential. However, Mind Springs issued a press release soon after the agreement, in May 2024, stating its hospital was “no longer in immediacy of closing.”
Just before the start of 2025, Mind Springs signed a management agreement with the Miami, Florida-based Larkin Health System.
The Health Solutions West detox center, formerly known as Mind Springs is seen on April 22. Health Solutions West CEO Jason Chippeaux said they have diligently worked to stabilize Mind Springs since assuming operational control; however, their focus has been exclusive to outpatient and residential recovery services.
Larkin CEO Nicholas Torres replaced Sheehan as interim leader, telling the Sentinel his goal was to preserve the psychiatric hospital and bolster the national behavioral health workforce by adding a residency program.
Within only a few months, however, Larkin and Mind Springs leadership were embroiled in community concerns about a mental health care contract proposed between the provider and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“It would be well worth it to bring in some extra cash to Mind Springs,” Torres said. “By no means are we financially stable at this point. Everything we have right now is plans and estimates, but we’re still running about $1.1 million short (each month).”
The Mind Springs Board unanimously voted against the potential partnership in mid-February, and less than two weeks later, the board made two more announcements: Larkin would no longer contract with Mind Springs, and West Springs Hospital will officially close down.
The board attributed the decision to continuous fiscal challenges, “the uncertain future around Medicaid” and a lackluster patient count that failed to offset operating expenses.
The facility closed its doors on March 10 of this year, leaving more than 170 people unemployed and hundreds, if not thousands, without a place to go when experiencing a crisis.
The board emphasized it would preserve its outpatient services and substance abuse recovery programs, but much of the community was left concerned about where people in immediate crisis will go — whether they seek help themselves, or encounter law enforcement.
“It was easier when West Springs was here,” Grand Junction Police Department Co-Response Unit Clinician Brandi Black said in June. “Just (consider) the burden on families knowing, you can get care, but the care is 300 miles away.”
Black then added that the crises referred to GJPD’s co-response unit had become “much more concerning,” as locals with severe and persistent mental illness who frequented West Springs cannot access the necessary level of care.
“Some of those folks, unfortunately, can create more safety issues than other parts of the population. We had some friendly faces who, when they didn’t get the treatment they wanted, were regularly assaulting outpatient staff,” she said.
In a fortunate turn of events for much of the region, Vail Health opened its own inpatient psychiatric facility, the Precourt Healing Center, just two months after West Springs closed.
A sign for Health Solutions West along 28 3/4 Road is seen on Dec. 16. One addition to Health Solution West’s main campus has been a drop-in day center for individuals with severe or persistent mental illness, “The Oasis,” where peer counselors create a safe environment for clients while offering long-term resources to empower their recovery.
In April, the “Mind Springs” legacy officially concluded when Pueblo-based provider Health Solutions South assumed operational control of Mind Springs and its now-shuttered psychiatric hospital. In line with that, Mind Springs was rebranded to Health Solutions West.
Health Solution West’s new CEO, Jason Chippeaux, spoke with the Sentinel shortly after the change, saying the organization’s primary focus would be stabilizing surviving services, like residential treatment and outpatient therapy.
Reviving the psychiatric hospital simply wasn’t in the cards.
Even with the facility out of the equation, Health Solutions West Chief Operating Officer Heather Hankins said in July that the organization was running six-figure deficits every month.
“And that has lessened significantly,” Chippeaux said in mid-December. “We are not quite yet operating at a cash neutral position, but we’re zeroing in on it. On a monthly basis, we’re starting to have months that are in the black, and we’re convinced that over time we’re going to be able to right the financial ship from a cash flow standpoint.”
“We have started working on some of those larger, longer-term liabilities, and I think we’ve stabilized the bleeding … but we still have a lot of that (left) to deal with,” he added. “And we went into it with our eyes wide open for the most part … we knew that this was a rescue mission.”
Jason Chippeaux
Meanwhile, the Pueblo-based provider has modified various aspects of its Western Slope service lines, such as moving its men’s and women’s inpatient addiction recovery programs inside of the old West Springs building.
Another addition to Health Solution West’s main campus has been a drop-in day center for individuals with severe or persistent mental illness, “The Oasis,” where peer counselors create a safe environment for clients while offering long-term resources to empower their recovery.
Health Solutions West has also seen substantial success with its outpatient operations through its “Open Access” initiative. Instead of requiring new patients to schedule outpatient therapy weeks in advance, the provider has facilitated same-day outpatient care to any walk-ins across their locations.
Before Health Solutions West entered the picture in September 2024, Chippeaux said that Mind Springs saw roughly 50 new clients each month.
Within a month of implementing “Open Access” in September of this year, Health Solutions West treated 78 new clients. By the end of the following month, they saw just over 190 new patients.
Across the initiative’s first three months, Chippeaux added that 80% of patients scheduled a follow-up appointment, with the second visit scheduled eight days later (on average). Before the initiative, he said the average wait time for a clinical appointment was 21 days.
“I really believe that we are actively writing one of the best comeback stories in Colorado behavioral health history,” Chippeaux said. “It’s going to be amazing to look back and see what almost happened: the tragedy of almost losing a safety net provider and bringing it back to life in a way in which it’s thriving and meeting the needs of the community.”
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