Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to Acadia Healthcare's first quarter of 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. And should you need any assistance today, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. On today's call, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up during Q&A. Also, please be aware that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Brian Farley, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued a press release announcing our first quarter 2025 financial results. This press release can be found in the Investor Relations section of the AcadiaHealthcare.com website. Here with me today to discuss the results are Chris Hunter, Chief Executive Officer, and Heather Dixon, Chief Financial Officer. To the extent any non-GAAP financial measure is discussed in today's call, you will find in the press release that is posted on our website a reconciliation of that measure to the most directly comparable financial measure calculated according to GAAP. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements, among others, regarding Acadia's expected quarterly and annual financial performance for 2025 and beyond. These statements may be affected by the important factors, among others, set forth in Acadia's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the company's first quarter news release and, consequently, Actual operations and results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Chris.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with us for Acadia's first quarter 2025 conference call. We are pleased with our start to 2025, with both first quarter revenue and EBITDA landing in line with our expectations. while we made continued progress against our strategic growth initiatives. First quarter revenue of $770.5 million came in just above the midpoint of our outlook range of $765 million to $775 million, while adjusted EBITDA of $134.2 million was near the high end of our outlook range of $130 to $135 million. We also reaffirmed our previously issued full year financial guidance ranges for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, which Heather will provide further detail on later in the call. Moving to volumes, same facility patient days grew 2.2% in the first quarter, which included an unfavorable leap year impact of roughly 110 basis points over the first quarter of 2024. The strong relationships we've built with our referral sources and our 21 joint venture partners continue to be an important part of our strategy for success. Acadia continues to be the preferred partner for leading health systems with both local and national brand recognition across the country to better serve patients by bridging the gap between physical and behavioral healthcare. Along those lines, I'd like to provide a progress update on our strategic initiatives. In the first quarter, we added 378 new beds comprised of 90 beds to existing facilities and 288 beds from two new facilities that were opened in the quarter, which includes a joint venture hospital in partnership with Henry Ford Health in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and a de novo facility in North Port, Florida. In addition, Acadia added seven new comprehensive treatment centers in the first quarter, extending the company's market reach to 170 CTCs across 33 states. For the full year 2025, we expect to add between 800 and 1,000 total beds. Looking forward, We have a solid pipeline of potential opportunities in attractive markets and expect to add between 600 and 800 beds annually over 2026 to 2028. Before I turn the call over to Heather, I would like to spend a few minutes discussing the numerous efforts this company continues undertaking to support our quality initiatives and share a few thoughts on the policy landscape. At Acadia, our commitment to quality and safety is a foundational element of our strategy. Our facilities are licensed, accredited, and regularly inspected to uphold high regulatory and quality standards, including rigorous requirements for employee training and patient safety. We employ a multilayered approach to patient protection that often exceeds industry and regulatory standards. These measures, such as 24-7 patient monitoring systems, mandatory de-escalation training, and regular safety rounds, are designed to meet the specific needs of the patients and staff at each Acadia facility. Our ability to use data has continued to advance significantly. Our hospital CEOs and leadership teams also use a variety of sophisticated cloud-based systems with deep data capabilities to monitor care quality. Further, our integrated quality dashboard now provides real-time visibility into over 50 distinct safety patient experience and regulatory compliance related key performance indicators. At the corporate level, our team supports this work with weekly, monthly, and quarterly operational and quality performance reviews. We believe the supportive, multidisciplinary relationship between the field and the corporate teams ensures we find and eliminate sources of operational and clinical variation and helps us translate behavioral science to practice with consistency. Behavioral health is complex, but it is clear the need has never been greater for high-quality behavioral health care given the severe mental health crisis that our nation faces. Our strategy at Acadia remains centered on high-quality care and clinical health outcomes, and we will continue to prioritize our quality initiatives and expand them when necessary. Turning to labor, we believe our differentiated quality initiatives are having a positive on our ability to recruit and retain our staff. These efforts are directly connected to our emphasis on employee engagement and talent acquisition, ensuring we have appropriately staffed facilities with trained employees, which have improved underlying labor trends for our company. This is further reinforced by our premium pay, which declined on both a sequential and year-over-year basis in the first quarter. We are extremely proud of the commitment of Acadia's nearly 26,000 employees that have chosen to join our mission to provide compassionate care that improves the lives of patients and their families. Now, I would like to briefly touch on the policy landscape. First, let me say that we believe government policy has an important role to play in continuing to strengthen the behavioral health care system, and we remain highly engaged on the policy front so that we can continue advocating strongly on behalf of patients in need. While the situation in Washington is fluid, we believe that the essential care we provide to underserved and vulnerable patient populations will continue to be recognized and supported. To cite one example, supplemental payment programs have been a key enabling force behind not only our ability to serve high-acuity behavioral health patients but also patients in many other essential parts of the healthcare system, including rural hospitals, children's hospitals, and nursing homes. With this in mind, we expect these programs to remain an important funding mechanism for Medicaid populations. We remain focused on providing programs and facilities that provide these patients with the best possible care And we'll provide updates to the investment community as we receive clarity on any potential policy-related impacts to our business. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Heather to discuss our financial results for the quarter.