Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based ABA Centers of America is among the fastest growing private companies in America.
The chain of autism treatment clinics was ranked No. 5 on the Inc. 5000 list. The annual list ranks the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the U.S. based on three-year revenue growth.
ABA Centers of America provides applied behavioral analysis therapy for children with autism. The company, founded in 2020, operates clinics in 10 states. It plans to open 30 sites in 2024.
Ted Bender, PhD, chief operating officer of ABA Centers of America, sat down with Becker's to discuss the company's approach to growth, recruitment and more.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: You started in 2020, and now you're one of the fastest growing companies in America. What's behind your growth strategy?
Ted Bender: Throughout my career, it's always been apparent to me, and taught to me very early on, that you're always going to do well when you put patient care and outcomes first. Our growth has been so much more than about business. It's really more of a reflection of our mission and dedication to transform lives through compassionate care.
That commitment really began with our CEO, Chris Barnett. We were founded in 2020, and the main reason that he founded this company is he has a family member on the spectrum, and he was trying to get services. He started running into the problem in this country, which is that just to get a diagnostic appointment can take four to six months, if not much longer. Actually starting treatment can take a year or two. I've seen clients languishing away on wait lists for even longer than that, sometimes three to six years.
That is, for the most part, the state of autism treatment in the U.S. right now. Through his ingenuity and building this company, we've been able to bust through those barriers, offering diagnostic appointments sometimes as soon as 45 days, and getting kids into treatment much faster than our competitors.
Q: How are you able to cut appointment wait times?
TB: It's a lot of forward thinking and future-driven processes and procedures. Our processes internally are streamlined so we can get kiddos diagnosed rapidly without having to put them on long waitlists. We have the staff to do it. We bring on extremely talented people who are bringing new processes and better ways of doing things to the company every single day.
We've been growing so fast and getting more and more clinics. We hire new employees as fast as we bring on new clients. We've been able to grow extensively and do all these things at a much better clip due to our financial model and the way we process new clients.
Q: Recruitment is a challenge across the behavioral health industry. How have you been able to hire employees quickly?
TB: One of the hardest recruits in this industry and one of the most in-demand positions are [board certified behavioral analysts.] Those are the therapists who create and oversee treatment plans. Right now, in America, there's about 50,000 to 60,000 BCBAs. I did some research recently on the number of job postings out there for that position, and there's 80,000 to 90,000. What that tells us is the demand for the position is so high, and we just don't have enough BCBAs to fill the demand. That's a big part of the reason why kids are languishing on waitlists across the country, because one of the key positions, there's just not enough of them.
One of the ways we've been able to attack that is through our Temple University program. We've created the ABA Centers Autism Lab, which helps us to conduct research in the field, but also to train students. When we get employees that are eligible for a masters program at Temple, we pay for all their education. We have close to 25 employees who are getting their master's degree to become BCBAs, and we're continuing to do that and grow that program. That's one of the ways we've been able to not only get more BCBAs to cover the demand, but also to recruit and bring top talent to our organization.
Q: How do you balance growth and sustainability?
TB: All our growth has been de novo. We've been able to do all of this without going through blitz acquisition periods and buying up smaller facilities. As we continue to disrupt the industry by reducing wait times and getting kids into care faster, that's fueling our growth at the same time. Being able to recruit and keep top talent, it's a self-perpetuating growth strategy that's continuing to help us expand across the country.
Q: What do you see as the benefits of opening new clinics over acquiring existing ones?
TB: I really like the fact that we're just not dependent on [acquisitions]. We have such a fantastic, well thought-out and pro-forma model for opening new clinics in new areas. We've done it so many times now, that we've got it down so well that we're able to keep popping them up as fast as we can. We have roughly 30 clinics now, we'll probably be at over 50 by the end of the year with a very clear plan for future growth deep into 2025. Like any company, like any startup, you make mistakes along the way, you learn from them, and really get your strategy down to a science.