CASPER, Wyo. \u2013\u2013 Many people suffering mental health crises need immediate help, but the lack of available resources and options all too often leads to emergency room trips, police visits or tragedy.<\/p>\n
A Cheyenne-based business hopes to alleviate that by offering Casper patients instant access to mental healthcare with a walk-in model.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be for individuals who maybe notice a change in behavior for someone in their family or a friend,\u201d said LIV Health President and CEO Emily Loos, \u201cand can relieve that burden on our emergency rooms, because a lot of people will go into the ER in crisis when they don\u2019t necessarily need that level of care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s treated just like regular urgent care: You come in, and it\u2019s first-come, first-served.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea is to offer a less complicated and time-consuming option for people ages 5 and up who don\u2019t necessarily need an ER visit or to be institutionalized. \u201cOur goal is to stabilize patients who come in who are in crisis,\u201d she said. They can also serve as a bridge for patients when their therapist is unavailable for whatever reason and they need same-day care, and can work with families who may have a child or partner in crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be a crisis visit, but let\u2019s say they are testing the waters about talking to someone, and just want to see how it goes,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can walk in and see a therapist for same-day counseling.\u201d <\/p>\n
Loos said the clinic can offer options for parents and schools who have young people in crisis, but who don\u2019t necessarily need to be admitted into a full-time facility. \u201cWe want it to be less invasive, and we want it to be a place where parents can get questions answered,\u201d she said. \u201cYes, it [may be] a referral for an inpatient hospitalization depending on the situation, but depends on the needs of the patient, of course; we want to make sure that they\u2019re safe and have the appropriate treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea is still novel in mental healthcare, said Loos. There are some similar clinics in other states, but only a relative handful. Wyoming continues to struggle with one of the country\u2019s highest suicide rates per-capita<\/a>, making the need for more mental healthcare particularly urgent.<\/p>\n LIV Health started in 2014 doing mostly in-home mental health visits. Over time, they realized just how desperate people were for instant care, so they decided to open an urgent care facility in 2023 in Cheyenne. \u201cThat\u2019s been really incredible and that\u2019s why we\u2019re expanding, hoping to offer more mental health throughout Wyoming and other areas,\u201d she said. They recently opened a facility in northern Colorado, but hope to mainly focus on growing in Wyoming.<\/p>\n Two credentialed health professionals have been hired for the clinic so far, which is aiming to open in February. Their initial plan is to be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and eventually operate from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday.<\/p>\n There will be telehealth options for overflow days, but their aim is to have person-to-person contact. \u201cWe want our patients to have somebody in person there, and our goal will be to see what the volume is in Casper, and then hire accordingly,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The Casper LIV Health clinic is scheduled to open in February 2026. It will be located at 6631 E. 2nd St., Suite 200. Its phone number is 307-277-0652<\/a>, and it can be found online at livhealth.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CASPER, Wyo. \u2013\u2013 Many people suffering mental health crises need immediate help, but the lack of available resources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-396929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}