A Michigan lawmaker is demanding the state restore Office of Recipient Rights patient complaint data that had been removed from the state’s website.
The data was removed from the website after the Investigators at Local 4 asked about a discrepancy between the data on the dashboard and in a recent audit released by the Michigan Office of the Auditor General.
The Office of Recipient Rights is the agency that handles complaints, violations, for the state’s five mental health hospitals. The audit found that protections for Michigan’s mental health patients were “insufficient.”
On Monday, Sen. Michael Webber, sent a letter to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services calling the removal of the data “deeply concerning.” Webber also asked for the state to provide a timeline for when the data will go back online and wants an explanation of the discrepancies.
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What data was removed?
The state of Michigan Office of Recipient Rights publishes annual reports.
Data was available for the fiscal years of 2022, 2023, and 2024. This is the time period of Oct. 1, 2021 through Sept. 30, 2024.
MDHHS told Local 4 on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, that there was an “error” in the 2023 data and removed that link from its website.
Because the 2022 and 2023 data were in the same report, all that data has been removed from the state’s website. The 2024 data remained available.
On Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, MDHHS provided another update. A spokesperson wrote “There were errors in how some data fields were displayed.” They said the error had been corrected and provided Local 4 with a file with the 2023 data.
---> Audit finds protections for Michigan’s mental health patients ‘insufficient’