Capillary Placement
Does North Carolina have a behavioral health bed registry?
This page is from Capillary Health, not from the state government.
Yes. The state's mental health agency said in 2025 that it runs a crisis bed registry. With Capillary Placement, deputies, crisis teams and emergency departments in North Carolina 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.
North Carolina today
The Department of Health and Human Services runs BH SCAN, a secure online bed registry started in January 2023. Referring facilities search it for open inpatient psychiatric, substance use, behavioral health urgent care and state hospital beds. No law requires facilities to take part.
- Registry
- Behavioral Health Statewide Central Availability Navigator (BH SCAN)
Checked November 2026.
How Capillary Placement would work in North Carolina
Each request moves through four steps. The pictures show a sample registry with made-up facilities and numbers.
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.
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.
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 The request is withdrawn from every other facility, so none of them keeps a bed for someone who is not coming.
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.
Day one in North Carolina
Before any facility signs up, a registry in North Carolina would start from public data: the 37 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 North Carolina?
- CMS lists 37 inpatient psychiatric facilities in North Carolina: 14 psychiatric hospitals and 23 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
- NCDHHS news, January 2023ncdhhs.gov
- NCDHHS news, March 2026ncdhhs.gov
- NCDHHS, BH SCAN pagencdhhs.gov
- NASMHPD Research Institute (NRI), Behavioral Health Crisis Service and Bed Registries, 2025, published January 2026nri-inc.org
- CMS, Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Measure Data, by Facility, published August 13, 2026data.cms.gov
Talk to us about North Carolina
We show Capillary Placement on a sample registry, and the public data a registry in North Carolina would start from.