Capillary Placement

Does Maine have a behavioral health bed registry?

This page is from Capillary Health, not from the state government.

No. The state's mental health agency said in 2025 that it does not run a crisis bed registry, and we found no statewide registry of open behavioral health beds. With Capillary Placement, deputies, crisis teams and emergency departments in Maine would see the nearest open beds by drive time and ask several facilities at once. The first facility to offer a bed would hold it.

Maine today

No registry found

We found no state-run bed registry in Maine and no law requiring one. A 2025 bill to have psychiatric hospitals report bed capacity for a public website did not pass.

Checked November 2026.

How Capillary Placement would work in Maine

Each request moves through four steps. The pictures show a sample registry with made-up facilities and numbers.

  1. 1. Request

    Ask for a bed from a phone

    Choose the kind of placement and the age group. The nearest facilities with open beds appear by drive time from where you are, each with its 24-hour line. One button sends the request to several of them at once.

    Find a bed on a phone, with sample data: drive times from Stillwater, Emergency detention and 18 to 64 chosen, and a button that asks the nearest 3 facilities.
  2. 2. Offer

    The facility offers a bed

    The request appears on the facility's Desk screen with the time left to answer. To offer, intake staff choose a unit with an open bed.

    A sample facility's Desk screen: request R-693B7A from a sample sheriff's office, the answer due in 30 minutes, a unit with 3 available beds, and the button that offers and holds the bed.
  3. 3. Hold

    The first facility to offer holds the bed

    The bed stays held for 4 hours, or for the time the state sets. You see where the bed is held and until when, with the facility's 24-hour line and directions. The request is withdrawn from every other facility, so none of them keeps a bed for someone who is not coming.

    The status screen on a phone, with sample data: bed held at Quarry Hill Crisis Center until 1:43 PM, its 24-hour line, Directions and a time to bed of 0:15. The two other facilities asked show Withdrawn.
  4. 4. Arrive

    The facility marks the arrival

    Each step is time-stamped, so you, the facility and the state see the same record.

What the state sees

The state's Live screen shows open beds by level of care, requests waiting for an answer, beds held and today's median time to bed. It updates on its own. Its map shows facilities, never a request or a person.

Live for a sample state department: 75 open beds by level of care, 2 requests waiting for an answer, 4 beds held, a median time to bed today of 4:29, a map of facilities and the last hour's requests.

Day one in Maine

Before any facility signs up, a registry in Maine would start from public data: the 7 inpatient psychiatric facilities in CMS's file, the state's own lists of crisis, residential and substance use facilities, and drive times from road data. On the first day, a deputy could find and call the nearest crisis centers. Open-bed counts would appear as facilities join.

No names or diagnoses

A request lists only the kind of placement, the level of care, the age group and how urgent it is. There is no field for a name, a birth date or a diagnosis.

The state sets the rules

  • How long a facility has to answer a request.
  • How long a bed stays held.
  • When a bed count is out of date.
  • How many facilities one request can go to.

Common questions

How many inpatient psychiatric facilities are in Maine?
CMS lists 7 inpatient psychiatric facilities in Maine: 4 psychiatric hospitals and 3 psychiatric units in general hospitals.
Is this page from the state government?
No. This page is from Capillary Health, not from the state government.

Sources

Talk to us about Maine

We show Capillary Placement on a sample registry, and the public data a registry in Maine would start from.