Indianapolis-based autism therapy provider Hopebridge has shuttered operations in Arkansas.
The multistate, multispecialty services provider cited state law that requires a facility serving five or more unrelated children for five or more hours a day or 10 hours per week to be licensed as a “child care facility.”
“Hopebridge provides medically necessary services such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), occupational therapy, speech therapy, and diagnostic evaluations,” the company said in a statement. “This reclassification shifts our designation from a medical treatment provider to a child care facility, which conflicts with our clinical model and standards for medically necessary care.”
The facilities shuttered, effective Oct. 3. It previously operated centers in Bentonville, Hot Springs and Little Rock.
“Due to this regulatory change, the state of Arkansas has left us, and many other service providers, no other choice than to withdraw our therapy services from the state,” the statement continued.
Hopebridge offered ABA, occupational therapy, speech-language service, diagnostics, feeding therapy and family training in Arkansas.
Hopebridge didn’t specifically state which parts of the Arkansas child care facilities law conflicted with their operations. A request for additional comment has not been returned.
Hopebridge is one of the nation’s largest autism therapy providers. It operates 112 locations in 10 states.
The company has opened a handful of locations in recent months. In September, it announced the addition of three clinics in its home state of Indiana. It also announced plans to add five locations in North Carolina in October.
Autism therapy organizations face a number of shared struggles, especially on the workforce front. Hopebridge has leveraged technology to streamline the job application process and utilized data analytics to develop candidate and workforce profiles, incorporating predictive analytics into the process.
Hopebridge has shown sensitivity to regulatory pressures in the past. In 2023, Hopebridge left its ABA operations in Colorado due to challenging Medicaid rates, for example.
There are several lively regulatory matters at the state level that impact ABA. Most recently, Idaho has started the process of moving autism therapy out of its medical benefits to its disability benefits within the Medicaid program. Other states have sought to curb the increased cost of ballooning usage of these benefits and have turned to hourly benefit caps and rate cuts.