Nevada’s 988 call centers are helping tens of thousands of people each year, and state administrators are already eyeing ways to improve the system in the upcoming years.

Shannon Bennett, a bureau chief within the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, told lawmakers that since the nation switched to 988 from a 10-digit suicide crisis hotline, there has been an “almost 100 percent increase” in utilization.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by calling or texting 988 or visiting 988Lifeline.org. Conversations are free and confidential.

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Nearly 42,000 people in Nevada were served by 988 in 2024, according to a state memo. In 2025, Nevada’s 988 call centers had already exceeded that number by the end of November.

“We have seen tremendous growth,” added Bennett, “and we have a lot more to bring to the table as we move forward into 2026.”

Nevada has made significant progress in raising its in-state answer rate and reducing the amount it takes callers to reach a person. In 2023, Nevada’s hotline had among the lowest answer rates in the country.

That’s no longer the case.

According to 988 data reports, in November 2025, 4,070 calls were routed to Nevada call centers and 3,525 were answered, resulting in an 87 percent answer rate. (Calls not answered in state are routed to national call centers.) It took 31.9 seconds on average for the calls to be answered, and conversations lasted an average of 20 minutes.

The state’s monthly average answer rate has ranged from 73 percent to 89 percent in 2025.

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Nevada supports its 988 call centers through a 35-cent monthly surcharge on phone lines billed in the state. That fee is set in statute and was approved by state lawmakers in 2023.

Assemblymember Joe Dalia, a Democrat from Las Vegas, asked whether the revenue from that fee is sufficient to cover the hotline’s operating expenses.

Bennett responded that the state’s current 988 contract costs $1 to $2 million a year more than what the 35-cent fee brings in annually. However, the hotline has funding and reserves to cover the current contract, which runs through 2028.

“Once we get to the end of the contract, or as we start to renegotiate whatever’s going to be next, we’re going to have to keep that in mind,” she said.

The state may be able to take advantage of Medicaid funding matches.

The state will also have to consider whether it wants to improve the hotline’s functionality and add things that it declined to add during the initial setup. That includes fully integrating the 988 system with 911 and 211, the state’s referral services focused on social services.

“We want that interoperability with 911, so I think as we move forward we may have to prioritize what is most important to us,” said Bennett.

Behavioral health calls inundate 911 and the long-term goal is for such calls to be seamlessly dispatched to 988. Technology to connect those systems exists, though the State of Nevada has so far not opted to pay for it, said Bennett.

Mental health advocates have long argued that law enforcement officers are not always the proper people to be responding to behavioral health crises in the community.

“We are doing a lot of work, and we have a lot more work to do, to really fully integrate the mobile crisis teams,” said Bennett. “So, if it is law enforcement responding, perhaps they have a clinician and a peer with them, so then those individuals in the community that may be in crisis are being de-escalated right there and getting the resources they need.”

The Division of Public and Behavioral Health’s 988 update came last week during a meeting of the Interim Finance Committee. DPBH appeared in front of the money committee to request approval of a transfer of reserve funding to cover costs associated with the hotline’s Southern Nevada call center, which is run by Carelon Behavioral Health.

The Southern Nevada call center opened last year. Prior to that, the only call center was in Reno.

Nationwide, the lifeline has answered more than 13 million calls, texts and chats since launching in July 2022. Demand for assistance has continued to grow.