Behavioral health needs to do a better job celebrating success, Oceans Healthcare CEO Stuart Archer said.
Payers want to know what they're paying for Mr. Archer said, and celebrating success highlights the value of behavioral care.
Plano, Texas-based Oceans Healthcare operates 25 inpatient behavioral facilities. The company picked up seven more facilities earlier in January, when it closed the acquisition of Nashville, Tenn.-based Havens Behavioral Healthcare.
Oceans has always been mindful about its growth, Mr. Archer said — and the company is looking to grow in a few key areas in 2025, including in adolescent and inpatient behavioral care.
Mr. Archer told Becker's about the company's approach to integrating its new acquisitions, its plans for growth and the challenges facing behavioral health.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: You've just acquired seven new inpatient facilities from Havens Behavioral Healthcare. Why was now the right time for this type of deal?
Stuart Archer: Oceans has always been very mindful about its growth. We're an organization that understands that hospitals aren't just financial assets. They're places of healing, compassion and care. For us, we want to do the things that we can do well. It's easy to take on too many things too quickly, in this industry, and in healthcare in general. We always have been thoughtful about how much we put on our company's plate at one time. We had been having discussions for some time with Haven. Given their footprint and our footprint, it made a lot of sense.
As importantly, culturally, there was a lot of alignment between the organizations. The ways they think about their communities, patients and the care they deliver were very similar to ours. It made the timing, and the reasons for the collaboration, make, increasingly, a lot of sense.
Q: What does your growth strategy look like for 2025?
SA: I think our team's going to be pretty busy this year. We've got to ensure that we integrate and ensure that the great work that Haven does is continued. Oceans has always been a company that has embraced and had a long track record of de novos. I wouldn't be surprised if you hear about a few more of those.
We're also very interested in continuing to prioritize joint ventures with leading healthcare institutions. You may hear about a few more of those that are pretty exciting this year as well.
I think you'll see continued growth for us this year in our outpatient delivery model. We continue to find ways for patients to receive care in the least restrictive environment. We think that with Medicare changes to [intensive outpatient programs] and [partial hospitalization programs] are beginning to have a trickle down effect in other areas, and with other payers. We have always been a large IOP provider. I think we will continue to grow those services in addition to adding PHP to many of our hospitals.
Q: What are the biggest challenges facing behavioral health this year?
SA: We are moving into an era where people increasingly want to know, "What am I paying for?" Payers want to know the outcomes we're getting. Behavioral health providers need to continue the work they have around having a dialogue about what outcomes look like in behavioral health around that, and celebrating many of the wins. Behavioral health continues to be a level of care where, due to privacy concerns and other issues, it's harder to celebrate those wins with our communities and talk about those in an open way. The providers we have here at Oceans, and the providers we have in our industry, save lives and change lives. We've got to do a better job celebrating and sharing some of those wins.
Q: Speaking of wins, what are you most excited about in 2025?
SA: We've been opening an increasing amount of outpatient services for adolescents. That's something we're really proud of. Many people remember Oceans as largely an older adult and geriatric provider. Those services are still important to us, but our organization has grown a lot since then. We're providing more adolescent inpatient and outpatient services. For many of our communities, we see the struggle that adolescents are going through today. Those services, to us, have been a really meaningful part of the increasing services we offer the community.
The other piece is increasing the partial hospitalization programs we've opened. Our [partial hospitalization programs] allow us to take a patient with higher acuity, that without those services might have needed an inpatient admission. We believe through adequate PHP services, we're able to mitigate, or prevent, a hospital admission. This year, we're also contemplating dipping our toe into crisis services for the first time in several of our communities.