LVHN, Universal Health Services open mental health hospital

Pennsylvania’s newest behavioral health hospital will open its doors for patients soon.

Lehigh Valley Health Network held a ribbon-cutting Monday for Hanover Hills Behavioral Health, a three-story, 95,000-square-foot, 144-bed behavioral health hospital in Hanover Township, Northampton County. The new hospital on Macada Road will open in early 2026.

“Every day, people deal with a full range of mental health issues, including behavioral health issues, eating disorders, substance abuse disorders and mental health care challenges due to their physical ailments. And what’s really important is that we have an entire continuum of care that can help people along their journey,” said Dr. Baligh Yehia, president of Jefferson Health, which includes LVHN. “What we’re seeing here with the opening of Hanover Hills Behavioral Health is that we’re taking a huge step forward in some of the most intense types of care, the inpatient level.”

Just walking around the new hospital, it is evident that the building’s purpose was always on the minds of those designing the interior. Colors and decorations are either neutral or calming, with many walls evoking nature. The counters surrounding nurses’ stations as well as hallway handrails are designed for patient and staff safety. The chairs throughout the building are blocky and weighted, making them more difficult to pick up.

The hospital opening comes amid an ongoing mental health crisis in the U.S. due to a shortage of providers, a lack of inpatient and outpatient services, and reimbursement and billing challenges.

“Mental health plays a key role in physical health. In fact, really, the two cannot be separated because behavioral health care is health care,” Yehia said. “And that’s because 1 in 5 adults across the country suffers from some sort of mental health issue and nearly the same amount have an anxiety disorder. And yet access to affordable and available high-quality behavioral health care services continues to be a challenge across our region and across the country.”

More than 1.7 million Pennsylvanians live in a community that does not have enough mental health professionals, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health. Five Pennsylvanians die by suicide every day.

Dr. Brian Nester, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Jefferson, said last year that 1,600 people in the Lehigh Valley who were in need of inpatient behavioral health services needed to travel outside of the region for care because of a lack of local beds.

“Now those patients can receive care locally,” Nester said.

This hospital, announced before the merger between Jefferson and LVHN, is a collaboration between LVHN and King of Prussia-based Universal Health Services, the largest mental health care provider in the country, with more than 400 facilities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom and more than 99,000 employees.

“Our teams at UHS, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Jefferson Health share a common goal to create an environment to which patients feel safe, supported and empowered. This partnership is built on a trust and shared vision and a strong commitment,” said Marc Miller, president and CEO of Universal.

The publicly traded, Fortune 500 health care giant generated $15.8 billion in net profit and treated about 730,000 behavioral health patients in 2024, according to its annual report.

“For more than 50 years, LVHN’s Department of Psychiatry has partnered with people throughout our community and organizations in our community to aid in their recovery from the challenges of mental illness,” Nester said.

Universal Health Services has faced its fair share of scandal and controversy. A class action suit was filed against Universal’s psychiatric hospitals in the District of Columbia. In 2021, it agreed to pay $122 million to settle allegations that it violated federal law by falsely billing Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, Veterans Affairs and Federal Employee Health Benefit programs for unnecessary inpatient behavioral health services and failing to provide adequate and appropriate services.

A U.S. Senate Report released last year titled “Warehouses of Neglect” focused on youth residential treatment facilities, some of which were owned by Universal. It found that children at these facilities are routinely exposed to sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Children are often kept in unsafe and unsanitary conditions and are rarely provided adequate behavioral health treatment, the report said. In some cases, children have died.

Universal Health has also been the subject of investigative reporting on how the health care company profits from the U.S. child welfare system. Universal Health Services and its behavioral health facilities were also the subject of a 2016 investigative series from BuzzFeed News.