Brought to you by:

Welcome to The Census, your weekly roundup of what matters in behavioral healthcare.

This week, we’re bringing you key insights and tips for growth from a behavioral healthcare founder.

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

Reading time: ~2.5 minutes.

💡 Five Lessons From a Successful Clinic Launch

Opening a new behavioral healthcare center is no small feat. Neither is growing a business through mergers that don’t require dilutive outside funding.

Jacob Biddulph would know. 

He founded (and runs) two addiction treatment centers in Kentucky and now, just 18 months later, is about to complete a merger that will see his business grow to support up to 100 patients across two states.

Jacob sat down with us to share his top five takeaways for successful growth.

1. Temper your expectations on turnaround time 

There will be a hefty lead time between starting a new behavioral health project, and actually opening to treat clients. Plan around it. 

With his Louisville and Lexington centers, Jacob said the licensing process took around seven months. 

And then he still had to deal with reimbursement lag, as they waited another half a year for Anthem to pay them for any services. 

So, be prepared for a slow start, and have enough working capital to see you through.

2. Prioritize people  — and lean on existing staff

“With any new entity, staffing is what makes or breaks you,” Jacob told us. He made it an absolute priority to identify strong and reliable staff. 

And don’t be afraid to relocate your best employees. Jacob pulled two directors and a COO from a facility in Tennessee to help him hit the ground running in Kentucky. 

3. Take digital seriously when generating qualified leads 

Jacob’s Kentucky clinics now serve 50-55 patients a month. But he started from zero. 

He grew his census through digital marketing, SEO, Google Business Profiles, Google Ads, business-to-business relationships, and even hospital visits in rural KY.

But if he had to pick just one to give himself an edge against other providers, it’d be digital marketing.

“Find a good digital partner or employee to run digital. And always look at it from an ROI perspective, instead of my budget is [insert the blank],” Jacob advises.

4. Start with the basics, and add new services as demand arises

Currently, Jacob’s facilities offer in-person PHP, IOP, and OP services. But he’s looking at adding nighttime IOP options, as well as virtual PHPs and IOPs to meet new patient demand.

Starting with the basics allows you to fix any snags early, and build quickly onto a solid existing foundation. 

5. Once you’re up and running, consider strategic mergers to centralize departments

In addition to founding his Kentucky rehabs, Jacob’s been serving as COO for Tennessee-based Tulip Hill Recovery. He quickly realized a merger between the three facilities would be highly beneficial.  

“Ben Jones [the founder of Tulip Hill] and I recognized we could centralize a lot of departments — admissions, HR, administration, etc.,” Jacob said.

“Merging together, we could take the best of all three programs and operations, and combine them into one system.”

So that’s exactly what they did.

Coincidentally, the official launch of the parent company created through the merger is today, May 1st.

Not needing to bring in any outside money will allow them to keep the clinical excellence and family feel at each current facility — and any future projects they open. A good thing, seeing as they have three more facilities planned for the next two years.

We’ll check back in with Jacob to bring you more insights as his business continues to grow. 

Thank you for reading! We’ll be back with our usual coverage of the latest news headlines next Wednesday.

- Shân

P.S. If you want more operator insights like these, open this link to let us know (I’ll track how many clicks it gets).

Want to generate more phone calls and patients?

You’re in luck. Our founder, Tim Stoddart, will host a webinar to share three simple tactics to increase your leads.