Abstract: The N-MHSS collects information from all known facilities in the United States, both public and private, that provide mental health treatment services to persons with mental illness. The N-MHSS is designed to collect data on the location, characteristics, and utilization of organized mental health treatment service providers throughout the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. The survey obtains basic data on the number and characteristics of these specialty mental health treatment service providers and the persons they serve. The N-MHSS is the only source of national and State-level data on the mental health services delivery system reported by both publicly-operated and privately-operated specialty mental health care facilities. The N-MHSS complements, but does not duplicate, the information collected through SAMHSA’s survey of substance abuse treatment facilities, the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS). The N-MHSS provides the mechanism for quantifying the dynamic character and composition of the U.S. mental health treatment delivery system. Before 2021, N-MHSS released yearly public-use files (PUFs). These are full datasets treated with confidentiality protections. The PUFs contain facility data on mental health treatment services. This includes location, organization, structure, services, and utilization. Note, the codebooks may not contain all variables. In 2021, the National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (N-SUMHSS) replaced the N-SSATS and the N-MHSS. It combines questions for substance use and mental health facilities. The 2019 N-MHSS survey universe included 14,936 facilities across the United States and other jurisdictions. Most facilities in the 2019 N-MHSS frame were identified from the updated database of the 2010 and 2014 N-MHSS; additional facilities were identified in the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 mental health augmentation and from states’ requests for new facilities to be added to the Inventory of Behavioral Health Services (I-BHS). The survey universe for the 2019 N-MHSS excluded: (1) Department of Defense (DoD) military treatment facilities, (2) individual private practitioners or small group practices not licensed as a mental health clinic or center, and (3) jails or prisons. Facilities are not eligible for inclusion in the survey universe if they only provide one or more of the following services: crisis intervention services, psychosocial rehabilitation, cognitive rehabilitation, intake, referral, mental health evaluation, health promotion, psychoeducational services, transportation services, respite services, consumer-run/peer support services, housing services, or legal advocacy. Residential facilities whose primary function is not to provide specialty mental health treatment services are also not eligible for inclusion in the survey universe for the N-MHSS.

Methods: For methodological information for a particular year or date range, please check the codebook for a specific data set above.

Other: As with any data collection effort, limitations must be taken into account when interpreting data from N-MHSS. N-MHSS is a voluntary survey, and while it attempts to obtain responses from all known mental health treatment facilities within the scope of the survey, some facilities do not respond. The data are not adjusted for facility nonresponse. Multiple responses are allowed for certain questionnaire items (for example, services provided in languages other than English and types of payment or insurance accepted for mental health treatment services). Considerations and limitations of specific data items are discussed where the data are presented.