The last active patients at Western Montana Mental Health Center were transferred this month to the statewide nonprofit AWARE Inc., bringing the organizations’ acquisition agreement one step closer to completion.
The acquisition began last summer, according to AWARE Inc. CEO Matt Bugni. Though the nonprofits have worked together for several years, Bugni said Western Montana Mental Health Center CEO Bob Lopp reached out in November 2024 to explore a more extensive partnership with AWARE in an effort to keep services afloat.
“We started some discussions about what this could look like if we were one organization,” Bugni explained.
“Due to a lot of different variables and factors, we decided that Western Montana Mental Health would go through a dissolution process that involves the Attorney General’s office.”
When the acquisition is complete, all Western Montana Mental Health Clinic properties will be under the AWARE name.
Originally established in 1976, AWARE employs more than 1,000 people and serves over 10,000 clients across Montana. The nonprofit provides community care and treatment, childhood services, family services and adult services.
Western Montana Mental Health Center operates 15 outpatient clinics and three residential treatment facilities throughout western Montana, including a clinic offering adult counseling services and a group home in Kalispell. The organization has provided behavioral health services to people facing mental health and substance use disorders since its founding in 1971.
Lopp did not respond to requests for comment about the acquisition.
All Western Montana Mental Health Center employees, aside from Lopp and the chief financial officer, were rehired by AWARE over the course of several months, Bugni said. Patients were given the choice to continue their care with AWARE, which most chose to do, he said.
Bugni said AWARE will receive most of Western Montana Mental Health Center’s assets and liabilities through the acquisition. In a dissolution plan approved by the Montana Attorney General’s Office, the center holds another set of properties through a creditor notice period, slated to end in August.
Several properties are slated to sell immediately to pay down liabilities, such as some assisted living or adult foster care homes, Bugni said.
“The more they have to sell, the less assets transfer to AWARE and less real estate that we would have to be able to operate services through,” Bugni said.
AWARE has already assumed ownership of most Western Montana Mental Health Center’s properties located in Missoula, Hamilton, Libby and Butte. For properties that have not transferred to AWARE, the center continues to work through its own transition process and obligations, including matters related to creditors and other financial considerations, according to AWARE Director of Development and Marketing Allyssa Gapinski.
The clinic in Kalispell is currently open and accepting new patients under AWARE. Fox Creek Group Home in Kalispell is temporarily closed due to a facility cleanup, according to Bugni.
The clinic provides psychiatry and mental health therapy exclusively through telehealth, Gapinski said. Onsite, they also offer nursing, substance use therapy, adult case management, Severe Disabling Mental Illness Waiver case management and the PATH program, or Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness.
Gapinski said they aim to reopen the Fox Creek group home this summer, once the final steps of the dissolution process are complete.
Bugni said that AWARE hopes to continue all services formerly operated by Western Montana Mental Health Center, but the complete picture of what that will look like depends on the final dissolution plan.
There are also sweeping changes to Medicaid on the horizon, including cuts at the federal level, that could affect services.
President Donald Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill imposes new work requirements and introduces a more frequent redetermination period for Medicaid, when someone is evaluated to ensure they are still eligible for coverage.
Also under the bill, state Medicaid budgets will be reduced by $665 billion through 2034, with state general funds reduced by $86 billion, according to analysis by the Rand Institute, which estimates a joint impact of 7.6 million fewer Medicaid enrollees in 2034.
Healthcare providers in Montana are already grappling with a Department of Health and Human Services budget shortfall. Montana lawmakers underfunded the health department in its two-year budget in 2025, resulting in a $183 million shortfall in state and federal funds, requiring the health department to borrow from next year’s budget, according to the Montana Free Press.
To partially offset those costs, the department wants to withhold a 3% Medicaid provider rate increase approved last year.
Bugni also pointed to the effects of cuts in 2017, which eliminated $95 million from the state health department budget and sent a ripple through Montana’s mental health-care system in the years since.
Amid this changing landscape, Bugni said it made sense for the two organizations to merge.
“It’s why organizations like Western and AWARE look at how we can share some of that administrative cost and not duplicate efforts in human resource finance, IT and how we can look efficiencies in office to be able to put more of that funding towards direct service delivery,” Bugni said.
Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4440 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.