Quality Capacity and Scale at Acadia Healthcare Chris Hunter’s Operating Playbook
Chris Hunter (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishhunter, https://www.crunchbase.com/person/christopher-h-hunter, https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/potmsearch/detail/submission/6553807/Chris_Hunter), Acadia Healthcare’s chief executive since April 2022 (announcement: https://www.acadiahealthcare.com/about/news-media-events/new-ceo-announcement-christopher-hunter/), leads the largest stand-alone behavioral health company in the United States as it pursues rapid growth amid heightened regulatory and public scrutiny. Acadia Healthcare operates a national network of roughly 250 facilities across about 40 states and Puerto Rico, employing approximately 23,000 people and serving more than 75,000 patients daily across multiple service lines (senior executive team: https://www.acadiahealthcare.com/about/staff/senior-executive-team/).
Appointed by Acadia’s board following a transition in leadership, Hunter brought more than two decades of healthcare experience to the role, including senior executive positions at Humana, TriZetto and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. At Humana he oversaw the Group and Military business, a segment exceeding $7 billion in revenue and serving nearly 20 million members, and previously served as chief strategy officer with responsibility for corporate strategy, mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. Hunter holds a bachelor’s degree with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Under Hunter’s mandate, Acadia has pursued aggressive expansion of bed capacity and facility footprint, with the company reporting a historic increase in bed count during 2024. Management disclosed sizable expansion-related capital expenditures and warned that startup costs would depress profitability in 2025. Company projections presented at the 2025 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference anticipated improving cash flow and EBITDA in 2026 as new beds ramp and startup costs decline.
The growth strategy is multi-pronged, emphasizing joint ventures with health systems and expansion of existing sites, and Hunter has set a target to double revenue by 2028. For the first nine months of 2024, Acadia reported $3.1 billion in revenue, with a majority derived from Medicaid.
As Acadia balances growth ambitions with regulatory and reputational challenges, Chris Hunter’s leadership will shape how the company translates recent investments in capacity into sustained financial performance and improved patient outcomes.
