The Outsized Role of ABA PM Platforms in Service Provider M&A

AIS 2025 underscored a key M&A truth in ABA: Practice Management systems shape how—and how well—acquisitions succeed.

While shared Practice Management Platforms can ease integration, the best Acquirers don’t rely on homogeneity—they rely on knowing their operations, tech stack, and data inside and out.

At AIS, I met bold Providers who had built their own EHRs and Practice Management systems. These leaders weren’t just confident in their Platforms—they were confident in their ability to acquire culturally aligned organizations with entirely different tech stacks. As one CEO told me, “We’ve invested so heavily in our stack, we can absorb any acquisition that’s a cultural fit.”

These bold Acquirers stood out for their enterprise-grade data infrastructure, ability to leverage that data for KPI's and Agentic AI, operational leadership, and mature integration playbooks. They didn’t need matching systems—they needed clear workflows, clean data - in addition to alignment on care.

Meanwhile, a new wave of commercial Platforms is transforming what’s possible. At AIS, I saw how Passage Health, Motivity’s all-in-one expansion, CentralReach, Lumary and Artemis are attempting to redefine how ABA Providers think about scale. These Platforms will gain (or lose) adoption based on how effective they are to a growing Provider.

Whether the stack is homegrown or commercial, the real differentiator is readiness. That means:

• Operational due diligence that digs into workflows and data models

• A Platform-agnostic strategy for integration

• Strong change management to align teams post-close

AIS 2025 highlighted that the Providers best positioned to scale are those who know their own operations deeply—and who treat tech and integration as strategic, not secondary. As the field matures, these capabilities will define the next wave of successful Provider M&A. And as I learned at AIS, that wave is coming fast!