Pathways Health and Community Support Looks to Triple Business, Rebrands to Clarvida

Private equity-backed Pathways Health and Community Support is setting itself up to triple the number of people it serves by 2030 and do so under a new name: Clarvida.

The behavioral health and social services platform will do so, in no small part by better unifying the several parts of the business into a more unified whole. This starts with a universal rebranding of the company, a decision that its leadership believes sends the right message about where the company is going.

“That’s not a decision that we undertook lightly,” Steve Wigginton, CEO of Clarvida, told Behavioral Health Business. “It’s a signal to all of our employees — current, former and future — that we’re committed to building an environment where people who do the work have the best support around them, the best and easiest-to-use tools and a culture that celebrates the impact of the work they do in a modern and vibrant way.”

Today, Clarvida operates in 27 states and employs about 4,600 people. Its largest service groups are outpatient therapy, foster care, child and family services, autism services, and supported housing and employment for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs).

However, the company’s services vary by market. Some of the company’s original services have been in operation for over 50 years. While he’s not sure about the history that led the company to a “collection of connected but not necessarily integrated businesses,” the future of the company will be to “unify and modernize this company.”

“We see a lot of opportunity for growth, just by leveraging this service category lens on how we do what we do and then driving standardization to the extent possible so that we can automate and we can make it easier for our employees to do their jobs,” Wigginton said.

The company named Wiggington CEO of then-Pathways Health and Community Support in April 2023. He succeeded Jill Winters, who was named CEO when Atar Capital announced it had acquired the company in October 2018. Managed care organization Molina Healthcare Inc. (NYSE:MOH) previously owned Pathways. 

The company has grown during its now-more-than five-year hold period through several acquisitions. Its latest and sixth acquisition during this time was the purchase of West Virginia-based Psychological Assessment & Intervention Service Inc. (PAIS). The terms were not disclosed.

Clarvida will keep a balanced approach to growing its business, not opting to delve into one service more than another. Expanding its services in markets that are missing some of its existing services is the company’s most straightforward path to growth, Wiggington said.

Apart from that, the company has three objectives for growth. First, making its operations more efficient and expanding them will allow the company to tackle its waitlists. Second, it’s working to deepen relationships with state governments and payers to get recognition for offering increasingly comprehensive services through competitive reimbursement rates. Third, the company hopes to integrate programs of its own or programs that payers and states have to address social determinants of health (SDoHs), which are the underlying causes of driving up health care costs or limiting the effectiveness of health care services.

“There is a significant vector of opportunity where we build on the expertise we have and the tools that we’ve developed but then think differently about the problem we’re solving, get out of the narrow lane of autism or counseling and therapy for troubled youth, and think more broadly about how we can impact a community and get paid for that in a way that makes it sustainable,” Wigginton said.

For the time being, Wigginton is not under pressure from Atar Capital to make an immediate exit. Five years is a typical hold period in the private equity-backed health care services playbook. But Atar Capital, which is a family office, gives Clarvida a different direction because it doesn’t have the comparable fund timing pressures of other investment firms.

“That’s not a central part of our thinking at the moment,” Wigginton said.