Florida health system to take over Western Slope’s Mind Springs Health after years of investigations, financial struggles

A Florida health system will at least partially take over Western Slope mental health provider Mind Springs Health, though the two organizations have yet to hammer out the details.

Mind Springs, which provides outpatient mental health and addiction services to much of western Colorado, also owns West Springs Hospital in Grand Junction, the only psychiatric hospital in the state west of the Front Range.

Both Mind Springs’ clinics and the hospital are coming off difficult years, which included multiple state investigations, allegations of fraud from former employees and financial struggles.

Since Mind Springs is a nonprofit, South Miami-based Larkin Health System can’t buy it the way it could a fellow for-profit provider, Mind Springs spokeswoman Judy Mendoza said. But they’re working on a permanent agreement through which Mind Springs’ clinics and West Springs Hospital will exist under Larkin’s nonprofit arm, she said.

The two sides are still working out some structural questions, Mendoza said. Mind Springs would still have its own board, and they’ve discussed ways to include patients in governance, such as having a former patient or advocate on a new board, she said.

“Larkin Health and Mind Springs are very interested in keeping a community focus,” Mendoza said. “We want to make sure we’re meeting community needs.”

Right now, Mind Springs is sharing interim CEO Nick Torres with Larkin Hospital South Miami, Mendoza said. It also has an interim chief operating officer while trying to hire someone to fill that position long-term, she said.

“Having the Larkin team has been really useful,” she said.

Representatives from Larkin, which owns two general hospitals and a psychiatric hospital in the Miami area, didn’t return calls from The Denver Post asking about the arrangement and why it was interested in Mind Springs.

Mendoza said the two organizations connected because Larkin has an affiliation with the Grand Junction Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Mind Springs’ affiliation with Larkin comes at the end of four difficult years.

In 2021, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, which administers Medicaid in western Colorado, suspended payments to Mind Springs for three months because of concerns about unsafe prescribing. The next year, they suspended payments again following unspecified allegations by former West Springs employees.

Also in 2022, former employees alleged Mind Springs leadership told them to fill out paperwork as if they had treated patients whom they’d never seen. A three-agency audit didn’t find evidence of fraud, but said the organization wasn’t meeting its communities’ needs.