Sacramento mental health provider announces acquisition, ambitious plan for US growth
.jpeg)
Sacramento-based Community Psychiatry acquired an East Coast behavioral health provider as part of an ambitious plan to reshape and expand how millions of people will be able to access psychiatric care, the company’s CEO said.
Christopher Brengard, the chief executive officer of Community Psychiatry, said his company had received a capital infusion from global investment firms in the fourth quarter of 2020 and was planning robust growth. The company announced Tuesday that it had completed the purchase of MindPath Care Centers, based in Durham, North Carolina, on Friday.
“The behavioral health space, for many years, has had a shortage of supply of clinicians, compared to the demand,” Brengard said. “We have seen an uptick in the number of patients and the number of referrals we’ve seen over the past year, and we’ve seen an uptick in the acuity levels of the types of patients coming to us also. While our intent was to grow the entire time, COVID has certainly not slowed that down and probably has pressed it even a little bit more.”
As it grows, Brengard said, the combined company will expand the number of clinicians and achieve a level of efficiency that will assure that it can meet the nation’s burgeoning demand for mental health services. With the addition of MindPath, Community Psychiatry will more than double the number of clinicians on its roster to 350-plus.
The behavioral health providers at both companies treat patients in person as well as through telemedicine, working with patients in their home states and beyond, Brengard said.
“Behavioral health is something that really has been on everyone’s back burner for many years,” he said, “and only in the last two or three years, (has it begun) to come to the top and be recognized as a part of the entire health care experience and certainly part of the ... continuum of care.
“With the industry being in very short supply of clinicians to be able to take care of the need, we literally probably are only seeing half the number of patients that have mental health needs across the country.”
Over the next three to five years, Brengard said, companies will really be assessing data on populations and drilling into what the evidence shows are the best models for care to meet the needs of the many patients out there.
Community Psychiatry has been offering outpatient psychiatric services for more than 20 years in California, Brengard said, and when it combines with MindPath, the new company will have 70-plus offices in California and the Carolinas.
MindPath, formerly known as Carolina Partners, has opened several new offices and bought a number of small practices throughout the Carolinas since 2019. Jeff Williams, who was MindPath’s CEO, will become the chief strategy officer of the newly combined company.
“MindPath Care Centers is excited to join forces with an equally motivated and experienced partner to further expand mental healthcare access to help treat the millions of people with behavioral health issues,” Williams said. “We will continue our fight to break down barriers, including the stigma surrounding mental health, the lack of coordination of primary care and mental health care, and more.”
