A 64-bed psychiatric hospital in Texas Township is three days from losing Medicare payment for new admissions, and two Kalamazoo-area lawmakers want the state to slow the separate case that could take its license.
State Reps. Matt Longjohn of Portage and Julie Rogers of Kalamazoo have asked the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs to extend timelines and give Kalamazoo Behavioral Health Hospital more detail and due process before any revocation, MLive reported Friday. A licensing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8. Neither the hospital nor its owner, Neuropsychiatric Hospitals, responded to requests for comment.
The Ask, and the Beds Behind It
Longjohn and Rogers signed a letter asking LARA to stretch the licensing clock. They want reasonable steps to keep behavioral health beds available, and they say patients, families, providers and communities should have a clear account of the concerns and the options before capacity is cut.
The volume behind that argument is not abstract. A 2025 adult psychiatric services survey recorded 778 adult psychiatric discharges at the Texas Township hospital. The facility opened in late 2024, so that discharge count covers most of its first full year.
The lawmakers also pointed to a statewide backup. A Michigan Health & Hospital Association report found that more than 150 behavioral health patients waited in Michigan emergency rooms each day in 2025 because a psychiatric bed was not available. Longjohn and Rogers say those shortages make it urgent both to preserve capacity and to expand it safely. They have also asked for a written federal plan to protect psychiatric beds and inpatient access if this hospital closes.
How the License Case Got Here
The hospital sits on a 4-acre site at 5802 S. Ninth St., just north of Kalamazoo Valley Community College's main campus. It is owned by Neuropsychiatric Hospitals.
LARA issued a notice of intent to revoke the state license on Sept. 9, after what the agency treated as continued noncompliance with state licensing laws. WOOD TV reported that LARA conducted nine complaint investigations between early 2025 and September 2026, significantly more than at any other West Michigan psychiatric hospital. The hospital was told to submit a plan of correction. State officials rejected that plan in May and later deemed it insufficient.
The Dec. 8 hearing is still ahead, and a license decision is expected in December. Under Michigan's mental health code, a revocation or suspension becomes final 30 days after the determination is mailed or served, unless the licensee appeals to circuit court in that window. That rule describes the appeal path. It does not decide this case, and nothing in the public reporting sets a closing date or a plan for replacing these 64 beds.
What Investigators Found
The compliance file is not a paperwork dispute sitting off to the side of patient care. In February 2025, LARA received a complaint about an assault on a patient. The patient was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a broken leg. Investigators found that staff had neglected the patient.
Transfers were already stacking up. WWMT reported that records showed patients were taken from the facility to another hospital at least 57 times from January through May 2025.
LARA went back for a site visit in June 2026 after reports of falls that caused injuries and hospitalizations. Between January and May 2026, investigators found patients were sent for evaluation for falls, unresponsiveness or assault on 43 occasions. Falls increased in April and May. The hospital failed to write incident reports for many falls with injury and did not provide a root cause analysis for the large number of falls.
The charting problems ran alongside the injuries. The hospital kept records on paper rather than in an electronic chart. Those records often lacked required patient identification, consent forms, medical histories and treatment plans. In one chart, there was no guardian-signed consent after only one attempt to reach the guardian. Investigators also found no record that physicians or psychiatrists had seen patients. Nurse practitioners were seeing patients for medical and psychological needs.
A later complaint landed just before the revocation notice. A patient's son said his parent fell around 3 a.m. on Sept. 2, suffering hip and femur fractures and a head injury, and alleged neglect. LARA found the patient's records did not document the incident. Staff notes said the patient was up and walking throughout the morning.
Medicare Stops for New Admissions
The federal payment clock is shorter than the state hearing calendar. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has said it will terminate the hospital's Medicare agreement over compliance violations. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the facility failed conditions involving patients' rights, nursing services, the physical environment, records and staffing. Those categories overlap the state findings on rights, nursing, records and staffing.
Medicare will not pay for inpatient hospital services for patients admitted on or after Nov. 16. Patients already admitted before that date can keep coverage for up to 30 days of covered services on or after the deadline, WWMT reported. That is a wind-down for people already inside, not a continuation of the hospital as a Medicare provider for new patients.
The lawmakers' request for a written federal plan is aimed at that possibility: if the hospital closes, who keeps the beds and the access. No such plan is in the reporting, and the termination announcement is not itself a closure order.
A Shortage That Does Not Fix the File
Michigan's bed math makes the local stakes obvious, and it does not erase the complaint record. A 2025 account ranked the state 47th nationally for inpatient psychiatric bed availability. A Treatment Advocacy Center count put Michigan at 1,945 licensed psychiatric beds in 2022, about 19 per 100,000 people, and estimated the state would need 1,065 more beds to meet its minimum recommendation. MHA data showed 218 behavioral health professional vacancies in the 2025 hospital workforce. In testimony cited by Upper Michigan's Source, 63% of patients waiting in emergency rooms were waiting for a behavioral health bed.
Licensed beds are not the same as staffed beds. In the Upper Peninsula, one assessment put the need at 75 adult psychiatric inpatient beds against 57 available. UP Health System-Marquette said it was operating 20 of 37 licensed psychiatric beds. MyMichigan Medical Center-Sault said it was operating 12 of 20 inpatient beds, citing staffing and the layout of the facility.
New capacity is arriving somewhere else. The Detroit News reported on Oct. 7 that a $383 million psychiatric hospital in Northville Township was set to open to patients later that month and was expected to add more than four dozen beds statewide. That project does not replace a Texas Township admission on Nov. 16.
What is actually on the calendar is narrower. Medicare payment for new inpatient admissions ends Nov. 16, with up to 30 days of covered services for patients already admitted. The license hearing is Dec. 8, and a decision is expected sometime in December. If regulators issue a revocation or suspension, state law gives the licensee 30 days after that determination is mailed or served to appeal to circuit court before it becomes final.
