Behavioral health leaders across the country are identifying innovative ways to expand care, address complex patient needs, and invest in clinicians and technology. From growing interventional psychiatry programs to deploying AI-powered training and building sustainable community partnerships, seven executives shared with Becker’s where they see the greatest growth opportunities — and how their organizations are pursuing them.
Editor’s note: These responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Question: Where are you seeing the greatest growth opportunities in behavioral health, and what strategies are you using to pursue them?
Rachel Dalthorp, MD. Executive Medical Director of Specialty Services at LifeStance Health (Scottsdale, Ariz.): Interventional psychiatry is a growing area as more patients and providers adopt these evidence-based solutions for conditions like treatment-resistant depression. I’ve seen how procedures like transcranial magnetic stimulation, Spravato and ketamine can offer new hope for patients who haven’t responded to traditional psychotherapy and medication management. We are expanding access to interventional psychiatry by offering these services in more clinics, increasing clinician education and standardizing processes to ensure they are safe, accessible and scalable.
Women’s mental health and reproductive psychiatry remain underserved across the industry, despite the prevalence of conditions such as postpartum depression, perinatal anxiety, premenstrual dysphoric disorder and perimenopausal mood disorders. To meet this unmet need, we have dedicated service lines staffed by expert clinicians delivering specialized care. By integrating behavioral health with primary and women’s healthcare providers and offering hybrid care options, we are meeting patients where they are, expanding access and helping women receive timely, high-quality care at every stage of life.
Omar Fattal, MD. Deputy Chief Medical Officer and System Chief for Behavioral Health at NYC Health + Hospitals (New York City): As the largest provider of behavioral health services in New York City, NYC Health + Hospitals sees the greatest growth opportunity in meeting the needs of our most complex patients. Our system currently serves this population at scale — nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers with complex behavioral health needs have received emergency mental health services from us, and almost half have been admitted to our psychiatric inpatient units. To address gaps in care, we are building new, patient-centered clinical models that comprehensively support this group.
Our Bridge to Home program helps patients with serious mental illness transition from hospital to community by providing care in a home-like environment while supporting long-term stability and housing. Our Extended Care Units deliver more intensive inpatient treatment that combines rehabilitation, social learning and behavioral strategies, resulting in half of ECU patients moving into permanent housing and significantly reducing emergency department visits within six months of discharge.
We have also improved coordination with the city’s homeless outreach teams by directly connecting field providers to hospital clinicians, enabling real-time collaboration and better treatment outcomes. At the system level, our Complex Needs Team serves as a quarterback across programs and hospitals, helping manage complexity and ensuring patients are connected to the right services without getting lost in the system.
Taken together, these efforts form our Complex Needs Hub, a gold standard model of care that not only strengthens continuity and access but also positions us — and the city — as leaders in developing innovative strategies for individuals with the most complex behavioral health needs.
Stephen Merz. Vice President and COO at Sheppard Pratt Solutions (Towson, Md.): Finding financially sustainable pathways to maintain and grow access to services is one of the greatest opportunities. We’re seeing broad recognition of the need and benefits of behavioral healthcare services among healthcare systems nationally. Focus areas tend to be specialty services for patients in urgent and crisis settings, child and youth services plus patients with medical and psychiatric/developmental comorbidities.
Preferred strategies are partnership models to address the community need, rather than cookie-cutter care models deployed broadly. Focused measures that target the core issue are more effective.
Michael Midgette. Chief Growth Officer at Thriveworks (Lynchburg, Va.):
1. Community-based care: While access is certainly foundational, communities and the individuals within them need true quality care and a therapist that understands their unique journey. There is enormous demand at the local level for care that feels accessible and rooted in community. Too often, people face long waitlists or providers that don’t meet their needs. That’s where Thriveworks’ model is truly impactful — meeting people within their communities with both in-person and virtual care and investing in collaborative partnerships with community stakeholders so that clients don’t just get care, they get the right care.
2. Technology innovation: Digital advancements are enabling deeper and more collaborative connections between payers, health systems and providers. We’re able to overcome legacy silos in care settings to bridge the gaps between physical and behavioral health, offering a true continuity of care. The opportunities this creates are huge.
3. Clinician investment: None of this matters without great clinicians. Our strategy has always been to attract, support and retain the best clinicians — providing them with the resources, training and infrastructure to do their best work. When clinicians are supported, clients see the difference in outcomes, engagement and overall experience.
Matthew Ruble, MD. Chief Medical Officer at Discovery Behavioral Health (Irvine, Calif.): For years, physical health has used standard measures for diagnosis and treatment, while behavioral healthcare was based more on perception than metrics. We now understand and have proven that a wide range of data — measures of depression, social determinants of health, personality traits, recovery scales and other clinical assessments — can collectively reveal patterns that help us anticipate challenges and provide precision treatment.
Discovery Behavioral Health now has the largest patient outcomes database in the country, with more than 20,000 Harvard-reviewed outcomes of wellness indicators, enabling us to make data-driven decisions that are more timely and effective. That creates a clear opportunity to grow and to help the industry see the importance of measurement-based care.
At Discovery, we are now expanding our services to offer a comprehensive range of clinical behavioral healthcare options nationwide, particularly providing more precision psychiatric care options for younger populations and those with challenging multiple diagnoses. This growth positions us to be open to partnerships to grow measurement-based care.
Nick Stavros. CEO at Community Medical Services (Scottsdale, Ariz.): First is de novo, organic growth. While mergers and acquisitions can expand an organization’s footprint, opening new clinics more directly advances our mission and vision. It’s about expanding access to care where none exists, rather than relying on just the financial arbitrage that comes from packaging up individual providers. Since most people with substance use disorders don’t actively seek treatment, bringing care closer to where they live and work is one of the most effective ways we can help them take that first step. And in high-interest rate environments, where debt is costly, de novos also provide a financially responsible path forward — enabling us to spread investments over time while still prioritizing access to care in new communities, rather than tying up resources in a single large acquisition.
Second is successfully growing newly opened clinics. Launching a new location is complex, but the real challenge comes after the doors open. Growth depends on building trust — not only with patients, but also with payers, community leaders, and local and state partners. Sustained success requires demonstrating reliability, quality and genuine community commitment.
Third is optimizing same-clinic growth. Here the most meaningful levers are increasing intake rates and reducing premature discharges. While there are limits to gains from adjusting revenue per patient or reducing costs, improving how effectively we engage new patients and keep them engaged in care directly impacts both clinical outcomes and organizational sustainability.
At the core, each of these strategies is less about chasing growth for its own sake, and more about removing barriers, meeting patients where they are and building systems that keep them supported in treatment.
Arpan Waghray, MD. CEO at Providence’s Well Being Trust (Portland, Ore.): One of the greatest growth opportunities in behavioral health lies in leveraging digital technologies, including generative AI, to democratize mental health knowledge and empower individuals as active participants in care. The behavioral health crisis cannot be solved by specialists alone. We need technology to distribute expertise broadly, transforming how we prevent, identify and respond to mental health challenges at population scale.
At Providence, one example of how we’re pursuing this is by introducing AI-enabled training programs for our 125,000 caregivers (all employees), including our suicide prevention module, Emotionally, Connect, Partner and Respond. This program uses generative AI to simulate realistic mental health scenarios that mimic varying emotional states, allowing caregivers to practice having difficult conversations — like responding to someone who may be having suicidal thoughts — in a safe environment that builds confidence and breaks down barriers associated with stigma.
