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California-Based Startup Lightfully Launches With 2 Mental Health Facilities
A new, private equity-backed behavioral healthcare startup has launched this week in California, securing 2 mental health treatment centers with plans to expand to 13 facilities within a year.
Lightfully Behavioral Health is backed by Regal Healthcare Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in New York City. The company was founded by Jennifer Steiner and a team of 4 other female executives who have a combined 70 years of experience launching and scaling mental healthcare organizations. Steiner has previously served as CEO of InnerChange, a provider of long-term residential and community-based outpatient treatment programs for adolescents and young adults, and most recently as CEO of Alsana, a national operator of eating disorder treatment programs.
Lightfully on Tuesday announced that it has acquired Resilience Treatment Center for Mental Health in West Los Angeles, giving the company a 6-bed residential treatment center and a 25-bed partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient program. The company said in a news release that has lined up 3 additional Southern California-based residential treatment programs in Brentwood, Thousand Oaks, and Carlsbad, along with another 3 residential facilities in escrow and a pair of commercial properties that will house partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs.
Lightfully said that its facilities will incorporate an “integrated process-based therapy model” to treat depression, anxiety, personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other trauma-related disorders. The company said it is putting an emphasis on measurable outcomes indicators in its treatment programs, and it is in network with several insurers.
Steiner said in the release that the concept for Lightfully was developed based on a personal experience of struggling to find mental health treatment services for the daughter of a family friend.
“I was shocked that I could not find an option that took their insurance and had immediate availability,” Steiner said. “Most of the mental health care services were focused on chemical dependency or eating disorders, not primary mental health conditions.
“In addition, outpatient therapists are struggling to meet the needs of the growing numbers of patients in need during the COVID pandemic. We are in a mental health crisis in America, and I wanted to create a company to improve access to care and change the paradigm of mental healthcare delivery in our country.”
Lightfully aims to have a staff of 195 employees across its network of facilities by the end of 2022, and Steiner said the company will look to draw “highly sought-after clinicians” with a clinical training program and 4-day work week, among other benefits.
Long term, the company is looking to expand outside of California, with a network of 30 sites and virtual offerings within 5 years.
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