Shuttered psychiatric hospital, once targeted by regulators, sold

A shuttered Las Vegas psychiatric hospital that was accused of health and safety shortfalls has been sold and is slated to reopen under the new operator.

Millennium Management owner Abraham Shaulson acquired the Montevista Hospital property for $18.5 million, state and county records show. The sale closed last month.

Now known as Desert Winds Hospital, its residential treatment center is slated to open in May, and its psychiatric hospital will open “shortly thereafter,” management said in a statement Wednesday to the Review-Journal.

The facility, 5900 W. Rochelle Ave., off Jones Boulevard near Flamingo Road, would debut more than a year after the pandemic sparked widespread chaos, fear, isolation and economic hardship, raising concerns about the outbreak’s toll on mental health, to say nothing of the roughly 540,000 deaths it has caused in the U.S., by far the most of any country.

It also would mark a new chapter for a property that faced heightened regulatory scrutiny under prior operator Strategic Behavioral Health.

Las Vegas therapist Sheldon Jacobs said the timing of the reopening “couldn’t be better because we are definitely in a mental health crisis,” one that is only worsening as the pandemic continues.

There is especially a need for more residential treatment programs, so fewer residents have to leave the state for long-term care, he said. The need is particularly acute for teens, who fare better when they stay closer to home.

This is Millennium’s second psychiatric hospital — the first is in its home state of Florida — and the firm has launched “a series of capital improvements” at Desert Winds to create a “beacon for quality mental and behavioral health treatment in Nevada,” representatives said.

“We are in the early stages of working with community leaders and Nevada’s healthcare experts to ensure Desert Winds Hospital is an exemplary provider and partner to the community,” the operator said in a statement.

Martha Framsted, spokeswoman for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, said applications were processed for Desert Winds, and its facilities are currently licensed.

With 202 beds, Montevista was the second-largest psychiatric hospital in Nevada and one of only a few in the state that offered acute and long-term residential services for teens.

Citing concerns about patient health and safety, federal regulators terminated the hospital’s agreement with the Medicare and Medicaid program in August 2019, cutting off funding.

Regulators cited the facility for “immediate jeopardy,” defined as noncompliance with government regulations that “has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment or death.”

According to regulators, patients gave their medication to other patients by hiding or “cheeking” it. Patients also set off the fire sprinklers, resulting in escapes.

State regulators briefly banned new admissions to the hospital in summer 2019, and the U.S. government entered into an agreement with the facility in fall 2019 that required it to hire an independent expert to help it come back into compliance with federal health and safety standards over the next year.

In March 2020, the hospital said it would close due to a continued decline in patients.

Strategic Behavioral Health, based in Memphis, Tennessee, announced in 2012 under then-chief executive Jim Shaheen that it had acquired Montevista.

Its current CEO, Mike Orians, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter. Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @MaryHynes1 on Twitter.